Insight Editions · No. 209
Go One More
The Art of Living Your Best Life
Nick Bare
Nick Bare recounts lessons from military service, entrepreneurship, endurance sport, and fatherhood, presenting principles for purposeful goals, consistent effort, resilience, and meaningful leadership.
A study guide to Go One More by Nick Bare. Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the authors or publishers. Please read and buy the original.
The Book in Brief
The argument in brief
- Origin revision. Lady Bird Lake failure births the mantra; later Bare rejects "do more of anything" for right things, right time, right reasons (what / why / how).
- Intentionality. Last Man Standing as clarity lab; prove yourself right; self-powered vs father-approval fuel; key collector; more without aim is neglect as hustle.
- Consistency. Burn the boats (YouTube/BPN); progressive overload under controlled discomfort (Jeff); simple ≠ easy; hard right over easy wrong; slow is smooth.
- Forward / backward. Endure the process (Chadd / Cocodona); Leadville endurance; patient in weakness; hay in the barn; run the mile you are in; hold or fold.
- Change as invitation. Charli birth and CEO step-down; disrupt on purpose; expect inconvenience (Nashville); course-correct (back to Texas); prune necessary endings; CIM 2:39 under stress.
- Make time. Value-Action Gap; schedule what matters; Korea→Texas BPN build; responsibilities over routines; boundaries; ride the red line, not burnout speed.
- All in, not consumed. Healthy obsession with off-ramp; Meaningful Mission; timed sprints; want vs like; flip the switch; clarity over empty head-clearing.
- Doubt. Outside doubt is noise; self-doubt steers; gut calibration; inspiration over toxic comparison; fail forward; they will call you crazy.
- Legacy. Influence on others' choices, not purchased status; ownership; drops vs buckets (Plank); lighthouse (Linda Bare); purpose (Cookie).
- Together. Fast alone, further together with the right people; allies over enemies; remarkable coaches; Francis product/brand/people; manifesto return to the boat.
- Finish. Finish well when strong is gone; enlarge the pain cave; vision + action = momentum; Go One More is an outcome, not a slogan.
Argument map: Aim and base lock the mantra; plan and adapt keep the process alive; time and obsession guardrails protect family and health; doubt, legacy, and crew scale influence; finish converts slogan into character outcome.
Chapter map
| Ch | Title | In one line |
|---|---|---|
| FM | Frontmatter | Change is constant; prepared adaptation plus intentional choice set legacy |
| Intro | The Origin Story | Mantra born mid-failure; revised to right things / time / reasons |
| 1 | Pursue Intentionality | Prove yourself right; self-powered; LMS unlock; key collector |
| 2 | Consistently Good | Burn boats; progressive overload; controlled discomfort; hard right |
| 3 | Forward / Backward | Endure process; Leadville; mile you're in; hold or fold |
| 4 | Change as Invitation | Charli / CEO; Nashville inconvenience; prune; CIM 2:39 |
| 5 | Make Time | Value-Action Gap; Korea BPN; responsibilities > routines; red line |
| 6 | All In, Not Consumed | Meaningful Mission; sprints; flip the switch; clarity runs |
| 7 | Doubt | Outside noise vs self-doubt; gut; inspiration; fail forward |
| 8 | Legacy | Influence drops; ownership; lighthouse; Plank buckets |
| 9 | Further Together | Right people; allies; coaches; Francis triad |
| 10 | Finish Line | Finish well; pain cave; vision + action = momentum |
Reading paths
- Founder under load. Intro clarity triad → Ch1 intentionality → Ch5 calendar audit → Ch6 all-in fence → Ch10 finish.
- Endurance block. Ch2 consistency + Jeff → Ch3 forward/backward + Leadville → Ch4 change under stress → Ch10 pain cave.
- Family / identity reset. Ch1 wife unlock → Ch4 transitions → Ch6 not consumed → Ch8 legacy → Ch9 crew.
- Full pass. Overview → Frontmatter through Ch10 in order → Synthesis Master Takeaways.
FRONTMATTER
- Clarity first. Without it, intentional, life-changing choices stay out of reach.
- Legacy as outcome. The aim is a legacy that reaches significant potential, not motion for its own sake.
Change arrives either way; clarity turns adaptation into legacy.
Introduction
The Lady Bird Lake turn
In 2018, nine miles into an eighteen-mile marathon training loop around Lady Bird Lake (Town Lake to locals) in downtown Austin, Bare's legs ached and felt heavy. Inner voices stacked excuses: you are not a runner; you are too big; you know nothing about running; you already ran enough in the military; get back to work. Running, he notes, breaks body and will until every signal screams stop. The mind favors least resistance, yet can also drive the body through challenge. Some of life's greatest rewards sit on the other side of that resistance.
- Scene. Cold, damp day; approaching mile ten; nobody watching; nobody would know if he quit.
- Quit attempt. He stopped and walked toward the rented house. With each step he argued with himself: seven-figure business just crossed; brand under construction for company and self; marriage approaching; and he was quitting a run.
- Character stake. If he quit here, what else would he abandon?
- Turn. He forced himself back, finished eighteen, then ran one more mile than planned. No celebration at eighteen; he kept going.
- Artifact. At home he wrote "one more" on his hat bill as a reminder for next time, photographed it, posted it. The phrase spread; people wrote it on their own hats. He refined it to Go One More, tattooed it on his arm as a daily reminder that ability, bandwidth, and tank always have a little left, and saw hundreds (possibly thousands) copy the tattoo.
What: Quit at ~10 miles of 18; reverse; finish; add one mile; brand the phrase.
When: 2018, Austin, Lady Bird Lake loop.
Outcome: Mantra, tattoo, viral share; later reframed from verb to outcome-focused mindset.
From action to outcome
Early Bare treated Go One More as pure action: one more mile, one more rep, one more day's work. The compounding consistency of extra effort every day mattered, and the mantra suddenly redirected his work and life's mission. Doing more of anything, he assumed, would yield overwhelming success. That was incomplete.
- Partial truth. One more mile compounds if you keep choosing it, and compounding consistency builds, but only when you are intentional and strategic about what you work on.
- Misread. Many people (Bare included, on many projects) assume that just doing the work earns the prize, regardless of what the work is. Harder work alone is not desert; you have not automatically earned the outcome.
- Requirement. Work must be strategic, intentional, and thoughtful to produce the desired result.
- Reframe. Go One More is more than an action; it is an outcome. You may hear it as a verb; it is a results-driven mindset. Apply it everywhere and you unlock opportunities and growth that set up success years ahead. More than doing more: doing more of the right things, at the right time, for the right reasons.
Action alone spins wheels; intentional what/why/how turns Go One More into a result.
The Mission
Bare writes so his growing children can later reference these lessons for a life of success and impact on a foundation of personal values. To apply Go One More you need clarity: what you are working on, why, and how. Without those three, you are "just doing stuff," hoping volume pays off. Go One More is the outcome: intention behind what, why, and how.
- Why document. He does not claim all answers or guru status or always being smartest in the room. He claims courage: act on curiosity; succeed and fail; learn; read; teach; share; lead and follow. Fulfillment comes from seeing positive impact; when something works, he wants others to benefit. The book is a collection of personal learnings he feels obligated to share, not a book of answers.
- Wisdom. Admired via time and experience, not mere age. Loves interviewing on his podcast and reading. Cites David Senra's Founders podcast and Marc Andreessen: there is more to learn from the past than we realize; reading great people's experiences is productive every time.
- Not a how-to. He dislikes telling people how to live. Hope: spark clarity and perspective so readers decide how to live toward the Go One More outcome. Ultimate goal: get you thinking about daily choices that steer life's trajectory. Guide to avoid his mistakes: not prioritizing family; selfishness; losing the meaningful mission; feeling completely lost while looking "figured out" from outside.
- Legacy aim. Set conditions and build a foundation for personal success so you can impact others. Chapters show him learning intentional life; clarity lets him help others do the same. Want success and clarity for the reader, and a legacy that carries for generations.
- What you are working on
- Why you are working on it
- How you will achieve it
CHAPTER ONE · Pursue Intentionality
Last Man Standing setup
Guiding question into the race: What truth am I going to unlock today? Format: 4.2-mile loop restarting every hour on the hour until one runner remains; cannot start early or late; distance and duration (and damage) grow each loop; only one winner; everyone else DNF (did not finish).
- Prior ultras. Leadville Trail 100 (out-and-back, Rockies, Colorado); Rocky Raccoon (100 miles as five 20-mile loops, east Texas woods). He knew how to plan a hundred; this format's unknowns were the point.
- Fitness identity shift. Fitness is work and identity. Business and family had grown; priorities shifted; ambitious challenges needed an "unlock," not another bib or medal. He has run marathons, ultras, triathlons; trained hours a day; burned both ends early in career (does not promote that). Proving others wrong is a dead end of external validation; that no longer resonated.
- Aim. No burning desire to win; 100 miles did not intimidate. He felt Go One More had shifted but could not articulate it. Hard events unlock mental compartments if you set conditions; LMS was the hoped-for breakthrough.
- Contrast. Three years earlier at the Austin Marathon he ran to prove himself (and others) wrong. This race and year: prove himself right.
Prove Yourself Right
People want motivation; many hunt external dopamine. Bare asks whether the durable superpower is internal motivation. Thesis of the section: flip the script from proving yourself and others wrong to proving yourself right.
BPN origin fuel and the dad line
When starting Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN), Bare told his dad he would make $1 million that year. Dad: "Nick, if it were that easy, everyone would do it." That became fuel to prove him wrong: external motivation via father praise and approval. Dad was right about difficulty. About $20,000 revenue year one; five long years to seven figures.
Internal vs external
He favors self-motivation, yet for years a background voice replayed doubters ("You can't… You're not going to succeed"). Trace fuel from that voice also planted self-doubt.
- Army boss in transition out of service wanted him to fail; said he would regret leaving because the business would not work.
- 2019 social announcement: train for 2020 Austin Marathon under three hours (prior best 3:57). Flood of doubt in DMs and forums. Result: 3:24, a significant miss; doubters loved every one of the 24 minutes over goal.
- Preview line (Ch. 7). Doubt is only dangerous when you start doubting yourself.
- Repair year. Refined plan, shifted mindset, trained another year, ran 2:56:27. Change: prove it to himself, for himself, not for people who said he could not.
External validation, chips on shoulders, and "prove them wrong" never felt fulfilling; they came from insecurity and steered emotional rather than rational decisions. "Ha, I got you" accomplishments are empty. Accomplishments should boost confidence and become stepping stones.
Self-sabotage Sharpie
For the 2020 sub-3:00 attempt he wrote "You fucking can't" in bold black Sharpie on his arm under the Go One More tattoo, trying to look down and fight disbelief. Outcome matched the ink. Wrong approach: built on not believing in himself or the attempt. Self-sabotage from insecurity rather than confidence.
Prove yourself right → belief in potential and result; internal drive; discipline to finish the process; accomplishments as confidence and stepping stones.
2023 community challenge: Commit · Endure · Execute
At the start of 2023, Bare challenged the BPN community to prove themselves right by choosing something new and hard. Three equal steps: commitment, endure the process, execute. He joined with three events: a bodybuilding show (discomfort via difference from recent training), Last Man Standing, and a marathon under 2:45. Military background: eight-step training model; this three-step process produced similar post-military results. To prove yourself right: stop proving others wrong; become what he calls self-powered.
- Commit to something new and hard
- Endure the process
- Execute on the goal
Be Self-Powered
Proving others wrong powers you from their criticism, pessimism, negativity, and disbelief. Self-powered means driven by internal belief and true unique confidence: the most potent fuel source he knows. Where drive and discipline meet confidence.
- Tim Grover, Winning. Stack wins across a lifetime. First win (degree, promotion, business start, personal milestone) is hard and rewarding; definition of win is yours. Each later win is harder and adds confidence until you thrive under pressure. Wins arrive with equal or greater losses; fail forward; momentum is potential.
- Dad's side. Dairy farmers; grandpa stressed by weather, yield, milk money; 4 AM and night milking; work as survival; no off days; emotionless objective decisions.
- Mom's side. Military and blue-collar; warm, loving, empathetic; grandmother kisses and tears of joy; one-acre garden; Sunday church then homemade burgers and fries with garden produce; laughter.
- Bare's blend. Can be stoic, cold, detached third-party; also warm and caring; flip feels seamless. Both lineages practiced self-powered ambition without needing to lecture it.
- Not destiny. You need not inherit the lineage. Self-powered is reinforced by consistency and practice: farm, military, or Fortune 500 C-suite. Responsibility to embrace, live, and pass on.
- Mechanics. Internal vision and mission; gut intuition even when what/why/how are hard to explain; remove people-pleasing impulse; maximize execution. Choice requiring intentionality, discipline, ruthless consistency. Skill forged by repetition until habitual (for better or worse).
- Independence from motivation hits. Do not require constant dopamine "medicine" or a fill-up every 300 miles. Motivation can help; self-powered people operate without it at high capacity. Control of the throttle without relying on external conditions.
Hard things as clarity labs
Bare encourages signing up for LMS, ultras, or marathons (or non-running hard things) because regular hard things change your life. Cites Steve Magness, Do Hard Things: running leaves you alone in your head with immense discomfort; endurance sports are a strong backdrop for studying toughness. Ultras start like a camping excursion with friends and become a mirror for strengths and weaknesses.
The Unlock (Last Man Standing narrative)
Noon start (unusual; most ultras begin before sunrise). Ideal weather; good start/finish access. BPN sponsored; community runners present; "Go One More" and "Prove Yourself Right" apparel and signage. Two tents, food, extra crew.
Nearby: a runner Bare knew online and his wife; no tent, only blanket and food; arguing in rising heat. Bare believes "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail" and over-prepares. Crew invited them to share tent and food; reluctant acceptance. Bare keeps ultras light (unsustainable to be a hard-ass for 24 hours). The couple brought coldness; wife frustrated; husband already overtrained and beaten. Energy drain.
- Cup filter. People who fill your cup vs empty it; you choose access. "Raw enthusiasm is contagious" also works in reverse.
- Internal alarm. Is this what Go One More looks like? Is this who took the message to heart? If yes, he was doing followers a disservice. Clarity would come in the miles.
Night running felt like home: usual 4-5 AM runs so he is back for daughter's breakfast; quiet solitude; city wakes around him; focus for reflecting on thoughts, actions, intentions. Coach Jeff Cunningham: people do not run to clear their heads; they run to gain clarity and organize thoughts, ideas, and perspectives. Near the end, especially last ~25 miles, the year's tip-of-tongue feeling found words.
Wife conversation (months earlier)
At dinner, Stef said he applied Go One More and Prove Yourself Right to training, business, and personal goals until nothing was left for family. Mind blown, heart crushed; he agreed she was right. He had not been Going One More in all life domains. He named family and faith as important yet always last; items recycled on to-do lists. He had justified absence as provider building security: a "free pass" from being the husband and father he wanted to be.
Racing in the dark, he paired that talk with the miserable runner. Hollow "more" (skip sleep, neglect family and work) was the wrong message. Leadership responsibility: difficult right choice over easy wrong.
- Reframe sealed. Go One More is outcome and intentionality. Delayed gratification; consistency compounds only when work is thought through. More for its own sake can be self-sabotage and self-destruction. Challenges unlock who you become; they are not notches. Go One More honors responsibilities; that is where its power sits.
- Deathbed questions. What does a Go One More life look like? Focus, priorities, responsibilities? True intentions? Will accomplishments matter on the deathbed? What actually matters in short time left? Am I fulfilling my mission?
- Daily audit. What am I working on and why? Intention? Opportunity cost? What unlocks from this focus?
- Military parallel. Every operation has a desired end state; required conditions achieve the strategic objective; end state is the North Star. Without it, careless operations.
- Race outcome. Not last man standing: first DNF, but he unlocked the truth he came for.
What: Ultra used as clarity lab; wife names family neglect; stranger embodies hollow "more."
When: Last Man Standing, Sept 2023; prior dinner with Stef.
Outcome: DNF on paper; Go One More redefined as intentional outcome across life domains.
Intentionality
Jordan Utter (creative director, younger, wise; sticky-note study quotes) had on his monitor: "Lack of intentionality leads to a repetition of what is easiest." Reminder to choose difficult right over easy wrong. Easy options lack discipline and intention; path of least resistance lacks originality, innovation, discomfort, newness; favors predictable safety.
- Growth is chosen. Without choosing growth you maintain status quo and go through motions. Each easy path adds degrees of separation from full potential; longer off course, greater separation.
- Land-nav analogy. Military land navigation: compass, map, protractor, eight-digit grids; terrain association plus precise bearing. Few degrees off compounds with distance until recovery is nearly impossible. Easy path = inaccurate bearing.
- Hard move. Pause, evaluate, step back, slow down, lean in with new intentional strategy. Feels like digression; prepares massive progress. He sees people pedestal quantity and ignore quality daily.
- James Clear. Prefer trying differently over only harder: maybe 10% harder vs 10x better via new attack. Persistence includes strategy. Remain on the core problem; explore a new line of attack.
- Strategy vs tactics. Strategy = action plan to the objective; tactics = shorter-horizon actions under that plan. Bad strategy + more tactics = no progress. Hammering tactics without new strategy fails.
- Car-in-air image. Person hits the gas while suspended: wheels spin, false accomplishment, no traction. New intentional strategy lowers the car; may move slower and work less, yet each step advances the imagined result.
- Interview pattern. Common denominator among successful people: relentless pursuit of greatness. Hard work works when intentional and strategically effective. Top people are not always longest at work; they are hyper-focused on the right things when working. Equation is replicable. Many neglect other life parts: ambition vs contentment war Bare still fights. Book aim: show up for work without sacrificing other obligations.
- $100M exit story. Podcast: man sells business for $100 million after two decades; tells family they will travel the world; kids refuse because he was absent and not the dad they needed. Bare's haunting question: Is this my trajectory? Willing to sacrifice everything on the journey for the destination prize?
- Lost perspective. Focus on wrong things (or only one thing) neglects everyone else; people who should be the focus become merely part of life.
- Failure as teacher. He has learned little through success, much through failure; arguably failed more than succeeded. Outsiders attribute his whole life to visible wins; he refined through failures (more in Ch. 2).
Be a Key Collector
Breakthroughs are keys, not one master key or fixed set. Endless keys if you keep placing yourself to grow, experience, learn, fail, adapt. Each opportunity can yield a key: confidence, maturity, clarity. LMS handed a key: new perspective on Go One More he wants to share.
Self-check after Stef: What are your priorities and responsibilities? Do they align with vision and mission for self and family? Are you intentionally taking action to show up for them daily? Repeat of Jordan's quote; alternate wording: lack of intentionality can leave you repeatedly overworked but underachieving. Action toward greatness without intention never arrives at greatness.
Comparison (especially social media) is joy's thief: others' constant motion, late nights, early mornings look like progress; spinning wheels is not forward motion. He does not want to drag a miserable spouse to races or build brand and business only to find he neglected everything else. In pursuing greatness, he does not want to be the last man standing.
Small bearing errors become unrecoverable separation; intentionality is the corrected compass.
- 4.2-mile hourly loops, Last Man Standing (Sept 2023)
- Prior ultras: Leadville 100; Rocky Raccoon (5×20)
- BPN year 1 ≈ $20k; ~5 years to seven figures
- Marathon arc: 3:57 → missed sub-3 at 3:24 → 2:56:27
- 2023 personal trio: bodybuilding show + LMS + sub-2:45
CHAPTER TWO · Be Consistently Good Instead of Occasionally Great
Burn the Boats (YouTube, 2014)
2014, apartment in Belton, Texas: about $500 left. Army pay reinvested into the company started two years earlier just to keep it alive. Observers excused slow growth with "takes three years"; he eventually saw that as an excuse. Could not afford employees, outsourced marketing, or ad agencies: one-man show. Needed YouTube to promote the brand, document process, and build community on shared values.
- Failed starts. First video: talking to camera about himself and BPN; hate ("You're doing it wrong," "SO AWKWARD," "Just another fitness channel"); deleted channel. Months later: same cycle; deleted again.
- Capital structure. Started with $20,000 USAA loan for newly commissioned officers: no payments 18 months, low interest; entire loan into first production inventory. Only $500 remained.
- Burn the boats. Invokes Julius Caesar: if you want the island, burn the boats. Spent remaining money on a real camera to document military life, training, and building BPN.
Courage to start and stay
Sitting with the first real camera, scared, camera-averse, incompetent on film, he started because he could not pay anyone else. Line: if not me, then who? Consistency requires bravery to begin. Confidence is belief; courage is the first step. Without courage you remain a dreamer.
Hate returned even with the new camera. This time he left the video up. Consistent uploads since that 2014 day: 943 videos, 164 million views, channel past one million subscribers about nine years later.
- Seasons. Fast and slow growth; creative fire and none; praise and soul-crushing criticism. Through documenting life, building business, leading a team, starting a family, and serving in the military, he kept momentum. Accelerated at different rates; never fully off the gas.
- Pace metaphor. Goal is not 100 mph for a lifetime (impossible). Never let off the gas, even if some segments are only 5 mph. Keep moving forward.
- Grace. Night scrolling old videos: cringes at naivete. Unknown path felt like sprinting; all in. Mistakes, near-zero cash, physical and mental ground-down: never quit. Wishes earlier grace; perfectionism slowed him. Resurfacing early videos shows stuttering, awkward eye contact: everyone starts at zero; you can and must improve.
What: Third YouTube attempt after two deletions; camera bought with last cash.
When: 2014 Belton, TX.
Outcome: Enduring channel; 943 videos / 164M views / 1M+ subs; consistency as identity.
Consistency Beats Talent
Consistency is not a birth trait. Natural talent is visible early (90 mph heaters, game-winning catches). Bare calls himself poster child for average (mom would argue). Pure talent did not bring him here: compounding consistent goodness over a decade did.
- Baseball dream. Wanted pro or at least D1. Played varsity; kept up with gifted athletes; post-HS sports were not in the cards because he did not apply sustained effort. Liked the idea more than the cost. Talent starts you; only takes you so far. On an XY graph the consistent hard worker eventually passes talent-only. Talent is binary birth; consistency is a choice you control.
- Recognition. Friend: "you're one of the most consistent people I've ever met." Not a declared vow day; adaptation / natural selection. Once he saw consistency as competitive advantage, he built on it.
- Hard years. No single event saved BPN; slow daily problem-solving and opportunity-finding in the school of hard knocks. Tomorrow's alarm at 4:20 AM: warm bed loses to the run because consistency is controllable without needing talent. Brand, business, body built this way.
Progressive Overload
Second layer: progressive overload. Consistency transforms; overload squeezes the lemon. Fitness framing: modify training to increasingly overload muscular, cardiovascular, and CNS systems. Same weight, reps, sets for years → plateau. You choose consistency and you must choose greater stress over time. Stress stimulates adaptation; adaptation facilitates growth.
- Gym regular. Same workout every other day: most consistent person in the room, no stronger without change. Consistency is non-negotiable foundation; growth needs overload.
- Life stress. Resistance, obstacles, hardship are guaranteed. Reframe from pure negative. People decline life-changing opportunities from fear of failure; that failure might have been the overload. Sometimes overload is an event that happens to you; response quality sets adaptation strength.
- Goal placement. Keep setting goals just beyond realistically achievable grasp. Impossible only if never tried. Incremental exposure strengthens.
- Warehouse bet. 2016: first warehouse lease 6,000 sq ft after operating from 1,300 sq ft house with his brother; felt massive. ~Three years later: business up about 230%, still comfortable in the space. Comfort scared him; comfortability kills momentum. Wanted the right amount of uncomfortable. Against trusted advisors he signed ~10,000 sq ft. Extra space and rent as healthy stressor. Grew another 400% in 12 months after moving.
- Guardrail. Not irresponsible bets, all-nighters, or burnout edge. Strategic decisions for consistent growth: milestone a bit further, standard a bit higher, stretch capacity without breaking.
- Show up on a repeatable cadence (non-negotiable base)
- Add controlled stress over time (load, scope, standard, space, stakes)
- Recover enough to repeat tomorrow
- Avoid comfort plateaus and reckless spikes alike
Controlled Discomfort (Jeff Cunningham)
Coach Jeff Cunningham understands talent from living it: all-state distance runner; Baylor scholarship; 1994 Southwest Conference championship team; conference honors in XC/track; NCAA Academic All-America; HS coaching produced state champions, national qualifiers, NCAA scholarship athletes; now coaches mile through marathon including Boston qualifiers and multiple US Olympic Trials Marathon qualifiers. ~Three years with Bare: 96 minutes off Bare's marathon time.
Talks rarely entertain talent; focus hard work and consistency. Jeff: you need not finish "rolling around… like a scalded earthworm" to call a workout great; that often wrecks the next day. Want controlled discomfort, not completely wasted. Emptying the tank has a time and place; not daily or even frequent.
- Physiology metaphor. Mild repeated controlled discomfort week after week builds a massive aerobic system: like doubling streets and highways for delivery capacity.
- Prescription. Be consistently good; show up; know workout parameters; invest in process and plan; watch fitness creep in almost insidiously (plate tectonics). Race day surprise readiness is the point.
- Life translate. Exceptional rare performances lose to standard performance on a regular cadence. Hold back slightly to show up tomorrow. Days feel needle-still; years transform.
Occasionally great feels like home runs, game winners, big deals, stage awards. Everyday non-glamorous work produces those moments. Consistently good is the cause; occasionally great is the effect.
Sharpen Your Axe
Pastor Erwin McManus sermon: young lumberjack paid by weight; assumed young strong beat older less athletic men; wrong. Elders cut more, took more breaks, made more money by sharpening axes daily and resting while sharpening. "If the axe is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed." Show up with sharp tools via consistent intentional decisions.
Bare rejects glorified "grind" mentality: unsustainable, dull, inconsistent. Hardest workers he knows are sharp, intentional, high-standard; work is not a noun identity. Tim Grover, Winning: grind leaves dust; deforms and obliterates. Excellence sculpts: strategically remove what gets in the way; work hard and smart.
He once aimed for occasional greatness and failed at consistent goodness: athletic declines, business issues, relationship and happiness costs from a dull axe. More force did not fix dullness. Consistently good → clear head, sharp mind. Ranger School was not one good leadership eval; 2:39 marathon was not one workout; eight-figure business was not one marketing hit. Consistent hard work over long periods with refusal to accept defeat.
Cannot change life overnight. Overwhelming gap brick by brick; courage for first step; better in five or ten years if consistent and disciplined. Simple to say; not easy.
Simple Versus Easy
First trait to build for success: consistency as foundation. More responsibilities make consistency harder, so simplify life to hit goals. Simple ≠ easy. He once used them interchangeably. Simple = focused; reduce what you work on; turn down a hundred good ideas for one great one. Those decisions are among the hardest and most transformational. Fear easy; do not fear simple.
Bedros Keuilian: rewrite the story
Podcast with Bedros Keuilian: #1 thing holding people from potential is the story they tell themselves, partly true, often from childhood, environment, failures, lies about worth. Lack of confidence destroys who you could be: self-sabotage. You hunt evidence reinforcing why you are unlovable, not smart, cannot lose weight, should stay broken. Realize you can take back the pen others wrote with; rewrite from today; hunt evidence for the new story (lean, financially free, loved, not disposable, not stuck in abuse). Self-empowerment. Until death, thousands of blank pages remain.
Is the flip easy overnight? Bedros: simple, not easy. Brains build neural pathways; years of abusive patterns need new patterns and micro-habits hardened into life patterns. May need therapist, deep work, journaling. People distract via social media, binge TV, alcohol, porn, weed, gambling; never sit with what is going on and how do I rewrite? Time and effort; outcome can shape a new life.
Bare notes: easier to try changing others than ourselves. He once feared simple would look uneducated or like least resistance; overcomplicated to feel and look smarter; became ineffective communicator and leader. Simplifying raises effectiveness for self, family, and those you lead: more focus, clarity on what matters. Greatest leaders simplify so teams execute; incompetent "leaders" overcomplicate to manipulate status.
Eating disorder (age 14): simple not easy in the body
At fourteen, severe eating disorder: starving himself. "Bigger-boned" teen, not overweight. Obsession with thinner as control. Parents did not obsess over food; balanced diet with fresh local food plus normal dinners, BBQs, pizza after sports. No obvious childhood cause.
Escalation: cut "bad foods" (cookies, soda, treats) → school lunch turkey-cheese sandwich, chips, orange, water → cut chips → orange → bread edges → bread → water plus a slice of turkey. Hunger after class felt like a "win." Touched protruding hip bone repeatedly as win. Excessive basement workouts: jump rope in sweatpants and two sweatshirts; endless bat swings to sweat; hot baths; hundreds of sit-ups. Restaurant binges of everything plus leftovers, then days of sickness. Extreme fatigue; stomach pain; one Saturday could not rise for baseball: felt like dying.
Hershey Medical Center: tests; suspected tapeworm from vacation; then celiac / gluten-free; nothing worked. Family puzzled; he was ashamed and silent. About a year of decline. School pickup turned right to Eating Disorder Clinic instead of ER left. Doctor: "We know what you've been doing, Nick… You've been starving yourself." World shattered; cried; caught; embarrassed at wasted parental and medical energy.
- Solution stated. Eat more food. Consume more calories. Get energy, weight, performance, mornings back.
- Reality. One of the hardest things he ever did. Years to rebuild healthy relationship with food. Triggers still return at life intersections when control feels lost; dormant then awake. Simple is not easy.
Choosing Simple Is a Sign of Intelligence
Allegedly Einstein: make everything as simple as possible but not simpler (paraphrase of a denser Oxford lecture line about irreducible elements). Charles Mingus: making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated awesomely simple is creativity. Bare cites Einstein's ascending intelligence levels ending at simple (smart → intelligent → brilliant → genius → simple) and aims to simplify life and messages. Counterexample: a phone call that left the BPN team exhausted; teammate: that guy said a thousand words without saying anything.
- Dallas speaking failure. Right after Army: asked to speak in Dallas to people transitioning military to civilian life about transition, building business, lessons. Assumed simple; skipped prep on audience, intent, goal, impact design. On stage: dread, freeze, ramble A→D→B→F→C→Z; thousand words saying nothing; walked off exhausted. Feedback card weeks later: great story, not relatable to what I'm going through. Needed simpler, clearer leadership communication. Complicated is so often ineffective; clear confidence plus simple plan works.
- Army KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid: communication, leadership, story. Goal: uncommon creativity via reduction. Ask what to reduce or eliminate; narrow and go deeper. Identifying and removing should be difficult. You want a simpler life, not an easier (cruise-control) life. Create conditions for consistency on what matters.
The Hard Right over the Easy Wrong
Years preaching: choose hard right over easy wrong. Intentional decisions → delayed gratification, consistent positive return, greatness. Example: freezing rain morning: easy wrong = skip the committed workout; hard right = gear up and go. Hard right is usually less sexy, fewer likes, longer to pay off; morally correct; lets you rest easy. Easy wrong → cleanup, distrust, short high then halt.
Extremes: lying, stealing, cheating; forged documents and jail plus lifelong conscience. Daily smaller easy-wrongs: dirty dishes left for spouse, grocery cart abandoned, ignoring dog waste in others' yards: habit seeds that compound. Also elect hard challenges on purpose.
Chris Williamson on podcast: high performers elect hard things frequently; builds "I can do this" confidence. Consistency will not guarantee success; non-consistency guarantees you will not be successful; skipping regular hard things is close second.
Hard choices are inescapable (chosen or given). Two hard choices that made him: joining the military; starting BPN. Truths to remember:
- "Hard" is relative. Avoid comparing hardships. Welcome resistance just past comfort. Conquered hard becomes manageable → routine; unimaginable becomes achievable.
- Hard right → better life (not easier): better opportunities; exposes weaknesses as growth map; life offers direct lessons; growth requires stress; hard signals right direction.
- Make it a standard. Embrace hard or wait for growth that never comes. Choice matters beyond self: more hard chosen → more positive influence on others.
Restaurant mess story. Before Charli, watching families leave messes for staff; vowed his family would clean up; the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. Night out with ~one-year-old Charli, Stef, brother and sister-in-law: cleaned floor on hands and knees. Neighboring dad of three (ages ~4-10): you go out so you do not clean. Bare friendly refusal. Manager brought free margarita: he was the exception. Did not clean for the drink; did it because hard right. Make hard-right the norm.
Casual Sloppiness
Term he loves (accurate, catchy) and dislikes (describes the sad standard). Casual sloppiness = laziness, carelessness, no discipline or standard; leaves work unfinished so others redo, finish, or trash; less work for doer, more for everyone; irresponsible and selfish.
Strive for consistent improvement, not perfection. Inability to hit perfection does not excuse slop. Perfection as North Star vision is fine; pure perfection is impossible. Point is progress. Fear of perfection blocks starts and finishes (tattoo artist endless piece; this book endless edits). Accepting imperfection must not reduce effort.
Occasionally-great people impress rarely and are subpar elsewhere. Consistently-good people are reliable, to standard, finish what they start. He wants the latter on his team: not the rare Hail Mary, but tackles, first downs, protection every snap.
- Zuckerberg line retired. Early BPN cited "Move fast and break things"; later saw it encouraging casual sloppiness, ignoring standards, collateral damage, paralysis-by-analysis flip side. Prefers military: "Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast." Thoughtful pace enables faster real progress.
- Charge. Do not rush to failure. Set and hold standard; progress. Trust and reliability follow. Improvement exists even when perfection does not.
Consistency Compounds
Ties endurance to consistency beyond running. To run faster longer, prepare by running slower: build aerobic base below max aerobic heart rate. Discipline, consistency, patience; most important ingredients in a marathon block. Slow runs can be hardest (longer than you want; you could go faster; faster is not the goal).
No reliable shortcut. Digital age hunts instant rewards; he appreciates delayed gratification. Speed's short endorphins ≠ endurance where desired success is created. Hills and headwinds (literal and figurative) remind: journey never easy; result earned. Pushing through builds endurance; looking back shows over-aiming for occasional greatness burns out.
Inexperienced marathoners go out unsustainably hot: DNF or crawl; that was his early races. Consistently good at sustainable hard pace surprises you with distance. Race keys: hit splits; sustainable hard HR; nutrition, hydration, electrolytes; lean in when hard. Consistently good ages like wine or a strong portfolio.
Best things built not bought. BPN's community, loyalty, support cannot be purchased with acquisition spend; takes time, trust, value, consistent messaging and delivery. Body transformation, family love, true happiness: no price tag. Foundation of happiness via life's needs → abundant success.
Never smartest/fastest/strongest/most talented in the room; consistent work ethic became competitive advantage. Incremental wins invisible daily; obvious at five or ten years. Stack small wins. Marathon, business, marriage, fatherhood are hard; expecting instant success disappoints. Consistency wins. Foundation for everything else.
- YouTube: 943 videos, 164M views, 1M+ subs (~9 years from 2014)
- USAA start loan $20k; ~$500 cash left in 2014
- Warehouses: 1,300 sq ft house → 6,000 → ~10,000; growth +230% then +400% in 12 months
- Coach effect: -96 minutes marathon over ~3 years
- Chapter cites 2:39 marathon as consistency product
Spikes without base burn out; steady load with progressive overload compounds.
CHAPTER THREE · Forward Thinking, Backward Planning
Chadd Wright and Cocodona 250
Chadd Wright never needed an ultra to prove himself. North Georgia hills kid who dreamed of becoming a Navy SEAL. Failed the Physical Screening Test multiple times; reached boot camp only to find a pericardial cyst on his heart; found a surgeon for risky surgery; rebuilt fitness; earned the Teams. Twelve years as team leader and master training specialist; retired 2019. Since: business owner, entrepreneur, husband, ultra runner, and Bare's personal friend and mentor.
Recurring lesson from their podcasts and runs: everything that facilitates growth requires a long process. Chadd: nobody wants to endure the process; they want mundane ease and box-checking. Fitness, faith, husband/father (or wife/mother) roles: you have to go through it.
Cocodona 250 (Arizona) excited and scared him. Thought about it two years before registering. Outside past experience; could not yet commit to the required work. Hesitation was diagnostic: you're not really willing to put in the work… Just considering this event forced me to take inventory.
After Navy, Chadd and brother Blake started the 3 of 7 Project to help people become their best. Mentoring others meant he had to lean into Cocodona: it made him feel like beginners feel about a first 5K. He had forgotten nervousness, resistance to required work, and holy crap, I might not finish. The race restored empathy so he could truly mentor rite-of-passage athletes.
- Tension rule. "Growth only comes through tension" in all life aspects. Without tension you go in reverse, not even maintain. Vehicle left in garage without driving and care rusts and fails to start; it does not hold condition. Humans need tension or they erode.
- First-time shock. First marathon or hundred obliterates you. Documentary One Mile Out shows physical and mental hurt. ~Halfway (~120 miles) with 100+ left, he could not wrap his mind around it; rare breakdown; called it liberating.
- Last mile. Near finishes you are most likely to slip or settle. Last mile is where greatest achievements or failures happen; for every ~20-mile Cocodona leg the last mile was toughest. Process exists to get you to that last mile; keep doing what needs doing; endure.
Bare loves ultras for life parallels: enduring process from gun to finish, and for hundreds of training miles before. Wing-it nutrition and training ends badly. Fail to plan → plan to fail. Everyone signing up for a hundred dreams of the finish; few romanticize miles 70, 80, 90. Those miles hurt, elongate, lack glamour; they are essential. Finish joy is about journey and growth, not only destination.
Endurance Is the Key (Leadville Trail 100)
2021: Bare's first ultra, Leadville Trail 100, among greatest life experiences. Annual race on rugged Rocky Mountain trails around Leadville, Colorado. Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: like running the Boston Marathon twice with a sock in your mouth, then hiking Pikes Peak, then doing it again with eyes closed. Prior lottery failures; 2021 selected.
Day-before recon with team: older gentleman (late 70s or early 80s) walking past. Small talk; parting: secret to getting across the finish is endurance. Explained why younger, more athletic runners often fail while older, wiser, maybe less fit runners succeed. Team laughed (of course it's endurance). Later Bare heard the deeper claim: applicable far beyond the race: career, family, kids, marriage, relationships, business. Endurance = patience, consistency, long work, wisdom. Endure the process; embrace the journey. Endurance is built through adaptation and strategic stress, not birth. Rush or skip required steps in order → expect failure. Endurance unlocks closed doors.
- Race facts. 27 hours 53 minutes; 2:07 under the 30-hour cap. 4 AM start; mountains in the distance, exciting and intimidating. Early checkpoints felt effortless; he picked up pace, passed people, fantasized finish-line burritos and cheers; process focus faded.
- Hope Pass. Mile ~38 at Twin Lakes Village in respectable time; then climb Hope Pass twice before crew at ~mile 62. Peak elevation 12,600 ft. Texas lungs shocked; after brutal climbs every inch hurt; remaining ~38 miles would be a fight.
- Mindset shift. From post-race celebration fantasy to each mile, step, climb, checkpoint intentionally respected. Old man's warning: anyone can go out fast; the wise endure and pace.
- Aftermath. Broke him unlike other efforts: days without sleep; barely walk; swollen; broken toes; hard breathing. Breakthrough: unlock a closed mental compartment. Willing endurance + respect for process → wisdom toward greater potential.
What: First 100-miler; early pace ego; Hope Pass reset; endurance lesson.
When: 2021 Leadville Trail 100.
Outcome: 27:53 finish; process wisdom over highlight-reel fantasy.
Be Patient in Your Weakness
Sally McRae: professional ultra runner; Badwater 135 winner; completed the grand slam of 200+-mile races (four such races May-October in a year); athlete, entrepreneur, wife, mother, role model. On Bare's podcast, preparing for Western States 100: "You have to be patient in your weaknesses to grow." Applies beyond running.
We maximize strengths and avoid weaknesses because easy, fluid, and ego-safe. Weaknesses slow us (new skills, help, search) and force honest internal confrontation. Enduring a process includes identifying weaknesses; more important is patience with them: do not avoid, rush past, or Band-Aid; learn why and what blocks turning weakness into strength.
Leader vs manager story
Bare told himself he was a strong leader but not the best manager, believed it, avoided managerial work, outsourced it. Worked until honest self-talk. Avoidance grew people problems. Weekly call with business mentor/advisor: management skills are learnable; without practice they never improve; avoidance guarantees zero improvement. He listened, tried, improved. Parallel to Bedros's "story": he had sold himself short. Practice and patience; not overnight; SOPs; reading; mentor talk; practice with employees; slowed down. Felt like a step back; was many steps forward. Chose hard right over easy wrong.
The Hay Is in the Barn
Enduring any process needs purpose. Without reason you will not enjoy it and probably will not finish; maybe a hand to fold. Not every part is fun; longer journeys get harder; harder forges sharper. Treat long hard processes as blessings: hardship → resilience; decisions → decisiveness; failure → reminder you are not owed success.
Select goals from personal purpose that fulfill and that you want. Purpose is the flame on lowest days; weak flame goes dark; easy days feel hard and hard days impossible.
Bare's passion: build, document, share process in real time across a decade: business; joining and serving as US Army infantry officer; marathon/triathlon/ultra/bodybuilding preps; becoming husband and father. Mission: share processes. Growth by choice, not chance; stay in the fight or the fight moves on.
Dairy-farm family makes the phrase literal: plant, tend, harvest, store bale by bale until the barn is full. Marathon prep = every workout and recovery choice stacked. Orchestra/symphony image: many instruments under a conductor; simple on paper, easy to mis-time by fractions of a second; toughness required. Saying "hay is in the barn" means you stayed committed through resistance; most quit before taper when the flame dies.
Forward Thinking, Backward Planning (namesake section)
Late 2022: read Gino Wickman, Traction, founder of Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). Concepts help entrepreneurs align vision, accountability, results. BPN tried EOS; it worked. Two leader types: visionaries (see future; passionate idea generators; big picture) and integrators (steady force making vision real). Together: "Rocket Fuel" (EOS Rocket Fuel University). Know which you are. Bare = visionary: dreamer, problem solver, constantly forward thinking.
Greatest military skill transfer: backward planning. Applied to fitness, business, family, even this book's timeline. Break a large project across duration with milestones. Every military operation starts from objective/end state/intent; timeline from that day-time-location back to now; milestones, to-dos, checks, inspections; plan, document, rehearse, prepare, coordinate.
Backward planning raises odds only if you are forward thinking: look into the future; forecast what might happen and why; imagination plus willingness. Without forward thinking, backward planning is too late; behavior goes reactive. Want proactive, intentional, strategic. Prefer respond (prepared) over react (emotional) when life's obstacles hit.
Niko arrival plan
After Charli turned two, second child Niko arrived amid fast BPN growth, large initiatives, full productive schedule, record-breaking sales, electric brand momentum, key hires. Waiting until birth to plan work+family would have been a failing reaction: pressure on business, employees, wife. Planned months ahead.
Preparation is critical, not perfect; forward/backward planning alleviates problems without guaranteeing the plan. Key: respond prepared rather than react emotionally; still responsible when plans change.
Three steps he used:
- Identify what you want the future to look like (CEO role; days supporting wife and two kids).
- Identify what currently blocks that future.
- Make a plan, share it, implement it from today to that future.
High achievers who refuse to neglect people they love must plan work to support family growth or they fail. Actions:
- Listed key initiatives; kept high potential; crossed out low-impact busywork; refined focus (eye-opening how much unproductive busyness existed).
- Reorganized structure so each initiative had a willing, able owner; promotions, demotions, hires, fires; initiatives could not depend directly on him; delegated and empowered; shared vision often with clear, simple communication.
- Owners built teams to goals; Bare focused where he had greatest impact and on what he wanted to work on; showed up for family.
- Created equity incentive plan: allocation of BPN shares; stock options to full-timers so they act like owners; vision became shared. After months of forward/backward work, changes landed before Niko; maintained business momentum and family presence. Not perfect; workable.
Be visionary for the life and values you want. Endure the process only if you look forward and plan backward. Imagine what and how; plan; execute; endure every step.
- Define the future end state (role, life, metrics, values)
- Diagnose present blockers
- Build timeline milestones from end state back to now
- Assign owners; communicate simply; implement; adapt when reality moves
Run the Mile You're In
Hardest part of enduring, forward thinking, backward planning, and executing: stay focused here. Jesse Itzler: "Be where your feet are." Gym → workout; family dinner → not unanswered email; friend lunch → that conversation. Tendency to jump mentally ahead.
Race danger: on mile 5 of a marathon already living mile 15 → lose focus on pace, HR, water, fueling required to reach 15. Getting too far ahead compromises decisions based on where you want to be, not where you are.
Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long, The Molecule of More: dopamine drives wanting, working toward, more-more-more; can aid greatness or cause downfall. Here-and-now (H&N) molecules: serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, endocannabinoids; pleasure from sensation and emotion in what you have, not only what is possible. Not a get-out-of-jail card; chemistry influences; you remain responsible. Imagination paints greener future grass; current mile can be great if allowed. Anticipate dopamine-fueled future without destroying present focus needed to arrive.
Click (Adam Sandler) parable: unhappy-enough man with good wife, kids, parents, job; Bed Bath & Beyond inventor gives universal remote; can fast-forward/replay/pause but not redo skipped life; skips to promotion; jumps years; autopilot costs him family by arrival; destination looks nothing like intended. Bare admits weakness at present-mile living in mundane life; improving, not perfect; hard for visionary goal-chasers who feel achievement through accomplishment.
During one 100-miler he caught himself disrespecting the race mid-course, living only at the finish. Realization: if you will not appreciate the journey, mile, and lessons, why do it? Not for buckle or medal. Practice: remove finishing rewards; he does not keep medals, buckles, or bibs.
To Hold or Fold
Readers will recall abandoned processes; normal. Long commitment for love of journey demands real passion and purpose.
Pattern from entrepreneurs, athletes, public figures: they explore curiosities (business idea, invention, contrarian marketing, whatever keeps them up). Average people leave curiosities idle. Action is the cure to most fears and insecurities. After act/try/evaluate: hold or fold.
Identity foreclosure (Lewis Howes)
Shortly after stepping down as CEO in 2023, Bare interviewed Lewis Howes. Felt like mid-life crisis; later saw compounding emotion from large transitions (CEO exit; first-time dad). Howes's identity foreclosure stuck. Eleven years building BPN: business/brand/work was identity; anything outside felt like disruption. Foreclosure does not always mean ending a chapter; danger is tying identity to one job or cause and resisting change.
Parable "Jack": decides in high school to be a surgeon; undergrad pre-med; med school; residency; twelve years later ready; no longer wants it; parents: do not quit, grind thirty more years then retire to pool/golf/Wheel of Fortune. Bare: horrible. Fold; explore curiosities; foreclose the fused work identity; pursue passion; you control life, work, decisions, outcome.
Lost Supply Apparel
~One year after leaving military, all-in on BPN, crossed $3M annual revenue (prior year surpassed $1M). Heard "serial entrepreneur" talk online; assumed next step was another business. Founded Lost Supply Apparel (outdoor apparel/accessories); shifted focus; eased off BPN. Early launches profitable with strong demand; BPN growth slowed and declined. Lost focus; stopped enduring BPN's process just as momentum after six years arrived. Closed Lost Supply despite its success; refocused BPN. Folding one process to go all-in on another: one of his best decisions. Explored curiosity; ended as fast as started when it was wrong.
Enduring process requires action and perspective (sometimes a shift). Great pursuits come with long strenuous process; process is part of the reward. Care about it → hold, all in. Do not → fold. Stuck in something you dislike and cannot fold → change how you think about it; without right mental approach you will not endure long enough.
Vision without present focus fails; present grind without an end state is drift.
- Chadd: 12 years SEAL; Cocodona ~120-mile crisis point
- Leadville: 27:53; Hope Pass 12,600 ft; 2:07 under 30-hour cap
- CIM build peak: 75 mi/week → 2:39 PR
- BPN: $1M then $3M years around military exit; HQ later cited as 80,000 sq ft near Austin
- Identity fuse: 11 years before CEO step-down
CHAPTER FOUR · Change Is Not a Threat; It's an Invitation
Patio night, 2022
Humid Texas night on the back patio: world felt flipped. Two massive transitions: first daughter Charli Grace; stepped down from CEO. Meant to celebrate; something felt wrong. Resisted unknown of fatherhood and founder-without-CEO-title. Invitation to a new season was present; he clung to the familiar.
Felt pulled equally: drive ambitions at rocket speed or slow enough to be present. Wedged: best husband/father or lead BPN to greatest potential. Even his mother's 2019 cancer death had not slowed the prior decade's go-go-go; now he felt out of control for the first time, paralyzed by fear of change. Bright enthusiasm he usually shares; dark thoughts he internalizes without asking for help (neither proud nor recommended). Stef checked on him; he could not articulate; problems felt insignificant beside others' suffering.
Two beliefs he holds:
- To succeed, you must be all in.
- You must accept change to experience growth.
In the middle he thought he could not be all in on both business leadership and family leadership at the caliber he wanted; could not see the forest for the trees; felt like an imposter preaching change while resisting it. Discovery: not a quarter-life crisis but a normal life transition. Change is not a threat to security; it is an invitation to something bigger and potentially better. Good, bad, or ugly transitions guide a meaningful life. Rushing for answers is less wise than embracing the lull between chapters.
Let Disruption In
Best way through obstacles: remain a student (books, podcasts, deep talks with friends and mentors). Right book at right time: Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength. Brooks: transitions feel like abnormal disruption but are predictable and integral; each change may be novel; major transitions happen with clocklike regularity; life is one long string of them. Crises exist; they are less common than we want to believe when we label every hard passage a crisis.
- Work identity. Started BPN 2012; decade of blood, sweat, tears; was not planning to change that approach for 20-30 years, yet how he poured himself in had to change because he had changed for the better.
- Fatherhood. Expected feelings; actual: better, harder, more rewarding, more identity-changing than expected; better man for it. Feeling lost while mission and identity evolved required regained clarity.
- Doer/fixer trap. Wanted overnight fix. Business problems often "block-and-tackle": PIP then fire; site down → developers nonstop; customer acquisition dip → new marketing. Life transitions are not that; deep work; chaos recognized more than constantly "fixed."
- Speed bumps. Transitions will recur; accept so you prepare. They become distractions if allowed; reframe as speed bumps placed to slow you; go through, not around.
- Step-by-step self-talk. Not crumbling; navigating a transition; how to adapt and use as strength/opportunity; thrive not only survive.
- Never avoid life-disrupting change or fear identity change. Aging pride in stubbornness (routines, food, opinions) closes potential; he hopes not to become closed-minded.
- Car-crash metaphor. Advice when impact is coming: stay loose and limber to mitigate injury; tensing worsens damage. Do not muscle every transition; pivot, adjust, be in it, learn; some transitions redirect toward more happiness, potential, fulfillment. His mission felt clearer after.
Make Change an Intentional Choice
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" pairs with "fine" as a how-are-you answer. Not-broke ≠ thriving; fine ≠ great. Alive vs thrive depends on choices, not only the dealt hand. Improvement and growth do not happen by chance; usually inconvenient and uncomfortable. Fine may not be enough while heart beats and mind wants more.
After Charli, previous life felt like it died; months figuring that out made transition tough; did not want to let go; then: new life could be a whole lot better if he invited it. Not erasure of the past; build on past for stronger future. Learned the hard way.
Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, Kaley Klemp, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: lean into area of genius (gifts/skills that lead you and others to established goals). That framing let him step down as CEO. Believed genius was creating emotional connection through content and stories ("brand amplification and awareness"). Did not believe he was the right person to take the org to next growth while starting a family; lacked confidence that his prior playbook was the leveling-up playbook; hired a professional CEO.
Nashville bet
Intentional full environment change: disrupt the last decade; evolve, not start over; pioneer the charge. Could have stayed in Texas on autopilot topics and videos; complacency/coma feeling; fitness race or new venture was not enough; wanted to thrive; created challenge for self and those around him.
Moved family and small creative team to Nashville, Tennessee weeks after deciding. Strength/downfall: decides and acts extremely fast. Sold house nine hours after listing; Stef, Charli, mother-in-law flew; movers packed; he drove 12 hours with two dogs. Built downtown office on city outskirts, ~one mile from Broadway's bars and restaurants: noisier, full of life, uncomfortable. Growth should be uncomfortable; change inconvenient; you never know right outcome without trying.
Sylvester Stallone / documentary Sly: told he would never be an actor, maybe an extra; cast as thugs; bought the story; wrote parts for himself; broke, wrote Rocky; producers offered $360,000 for the script if he did not play Rocky; he refused. Create your own opportunity when nobody grants one. Later in the film, movers pack a stunning home because he is creatively stuck and needs physical change for fresh perspective. Bare needed evolution, not revolution (revolution would be returning to the military). Evolutions = small stacked changes. Not everyone wants constant growth; their choice; not his. Money without evolution leaves him unhappy. Echoes Chadd: if he stops humbling himself as the new guy who might get crushed, he might as well be dead.
Why Nashville: Stef had lived there when they met (he in Austin); similar yet unique cities; familiar plus new; creativity, fitness, entrepreneurial spirit; both from northern states (Bare Pennsylvania, Stef Michigan); missed seasons vs Texas. Location mattered less than newness of spaces, places, faces for growth. Momentum = action applied to vision.
It's Going to Be Inconvenient
Before the move Stef heard a spiritual whisper: "It's going to be inconvenient." Prior whisper "October" had preceded Charli pregnancy news after a frustrating year trying; they take such whispers seriously (faith framing). Expected normal relocation pain: breakage, cost overruns, water heater death day-of. Wrong scale.
First months: exploring city, restaurants, community; creative team in a groove producing best work; change delivering hoped-for gains. For the first time in memory he prioritized family over work and was present: not constantly email/Slack/texts. Separation from day-to-day let him think deeply, work on the business not only in it, plan future rather than only react. Began separating personal identity from work.
Honeymoon phase of change: newness creates energy, fulfillment, motivation; until it ends you cannot accurately evaluate outcomes. Commit + endure → lessons; plans meet unexpected inconveniences that question the growth choice; normal gut checks of commitment. Dad's line returns: if easy, everyone would. Inconveniences keep you honest and humble about whether you want the growth on the other side.
2:39 (CIM under pressure)
2023 stack: Austin→Nashville move with family and creative team; investment-bank process toward private equity partnership (cash on BPN balance sheet; significant personal liquidity; generational inflection); training for California International Marathon, goal sub-2:45, another prove-yourself-right page.
Days before the marathon: late-night call from managing director; deal fell apart; "pencils down." Warning had been: closer to finish, tougher; nothing official until wire. Stress, demands, true colors; then over. Disappointing yet he was not angry, sad, or frustrated; structure meant neither party would be happy. Context: since college-apartment start 2012, he had not taken significant money out; reinvested for growth and health. Minority sale to care for family looked right; ~year of bank process and partner sourcing; eventually structured heavily against him; sunk cost made him willing to see it through; collapse confirmed wrong deal/partner/structure/time.
Entered CIM with different energy: sure of sub-2:45; peak marathon shape, best of his life, despite most stressful months. Finish under 2:40, specifically 2:39. Pride beyond pace: resiliency; focus and discipline when excuses were available. You can take money, time, assets; not discipline or hope. Few knew how hard 2023 was. Preparation reflected in the race. Job while running: finish as runner and business owner. Crowds: "BPN!" "Go One More!" Realized he ran for people who believe in the brand and want more from life. Not only to prove sub-2:45 to himself; to show wild goals remain reachable when life is loud.
Course-correct: back to Texas
Months after move, honeymoon gone. Missed Texas team and leading the org he built for a decade. Guilt toward employees who uprooted (left jobs; moved families). Cried himself to sleep; questioned prior six months. Chose growth; got growth and learning about self, family, team, business.
Hard right: as fast as they moved to Tennessee, moved back to Texas. Sold house; shut Nashville office; moved creative team to HQ; resumed CEO. Almost six months in Nashville; had thought forever home; life curveballed. Easy wrong: sunk-cost stay and "make the best of it." Hard right: think, pray, plan, decisive execute. Line: with endurance we conquer; with decisiveness we survive. You will not always choose right initially; be willing to choose again. Accept invitation and inconvenience, or choose complacency; you cannot have both. Adapt and pivot: sit back on the right leg, wait for the pitch, swing.
What: CEO step-down → Nashville creative bet → PE collapse → 2:39 CIM → return to TX + CEO.
When: 2022-2023.
Outcome: Growth lessons kept; wrong-location bet pruned; leadership role reclaimed.
Embrace Change
Running soundtrack often includes David Senra's Founders. One episode: everybody fears change; change breaks the brittle. Fear sources: pride, doubt, insecurity, emotions when ideas are challenged. Full potential requires change along the way; fear or avoidance blocks getting better; that weakness breaks you.
Strongest people embrace change and want constructive criticism. Amateurs want pats on the back; professionals want feedback on what and how to improve. Many who worked with/for Bare broke under constant startup change; strongest evolved through struggles and many remain. BPN constantly changing to survive; still feels like a startup after ~12 years. Startup work: new systems, creative thinking, no complacency, foot on gas. Culture some hate and he needs. Intent is not change for change's sake; still intentional. Does not wake asking what to change today; tries not to fight necessary evolutions. Species example: we do not live as cavemen because that was inefficient. Changes need not be maximally disruptive: wake time for pre-kid workout; diet shifts. Willingness when the right opportunity exists. Change breaks the brittle; makes the strong stronger.
Prune the Roses (Necessary Endings)
Nashville team dinner: saw pastor Lyle Phillips (Legacy Church, Nashville) with Dr. Henry Cloud. Bare had just finished Cloud's Trust; starstruck; shared timing of the move and already planning return as CEO again. Cloud: read Necessary Endings; perfect for now. Downloaded Audible that night; remains a favorite.
Cloud on pruning: know what you are pruning for. Cannot prune toward anything without knowing what you want; define what you are building and pruning standards; then own the vision or not in pruning moments. Necessary endings: end activities or relationships so the rest can flourish. Rosebush: cut dead roses, thorns, stems that steal nutrients; looks bare; grows back bigger. Cloud: getting to the next level always requires ending something, leaving it, moving on; growth demands moving on; without ability to end things, people stay stuck below their talents.
Sometimes chosen change fails to bring wanted results; then necessary endings. Due diligence; educated responsible decision; sometimes gut with available info; end the chapter. Leaving Nashville: among hardest decisions; hard talks with wife and team knowing effects on families. Tried soft options (slow return, split time, ride it out); needed the ending.
Blackjack metaphor. $1,000 in chips: sitting without playing is fear, not strategy; scared to lose and scared to try to win. Better to place the bet; lose/fail → learn; will not make the same wrong bet blindly. Without placing the Nashville bet he would not have known; maybe needed the chapter to sharpen the axe. Decades of "what if" are the cost of never betting. Always have a choice; always in control. Do not fear change; if wrong, admit and change again. Threat-lens people reach life's end with many curiosities, few answers, fewer stories.
Invitation to inconvenience to prune or persist; brittle breaks, strong adapts.
- BPN from 2012; ~decade identity fuse before CEO step-down
- House sold in 9 hours; 12-hour drive to Nashville
- Nashville chapter ≈ 6 months
- CIM 2:39 after PE "pencils down" (goal was sub-2:45)
- Stallone anecdote: $360k script offer refused without the role
- Mother's death 2019 cited as prior non-slowing blow vs 2022 paralysis
CHAPTER FIVE · If It Matters to You, You Will Make Time
The 4:30 AM stack
- Distance. Average weekday run 7-10 miles. Base weeks ≈ 45 miles. Event-specific weeks 75-90.
- Structure follows outcome. Faster marathon → more mileage and structured workouts. Bigger/stronger → cut mileage, add gym. Business growth → train so energy and hours favor the company.
- Family first. Training is always structured around family responsibilities, never the reverse. That takes intentional planning.
After the run: oats, eggs and egg whites (sea salt, hot sauce), banana; a few times a week wild-caught salmon or sardines; Stef's sourdough when available. Then breakfast for Charli and kid time while Stef trains. Routines evolved with business and kids; one constant: running matters.
Three things he wants at the start of a day: wake early, move and sweat, silence and solitude. Pre-dawn running delivers all three. In a distracted world, solitude must be scheduled. As a father of two, that is harder; the chapter title is the rule.
Why run
You versus you. Small pieces of leg pain, burning lungs, humility. Running teaches discipline, focus, and consistent action; builds confidence; unlocks mental clarity he has not found elsewhere. It was never natural. He avoided it, forced it for military entry and Army life, then said out loud after leaving the Army in 2017: "I will never run a day in my life again." That vow preceded multiple marathons, triathlons, and 100-mile races. He missed the suck, the high, the pain, and finishing a long hot Texas night. High achievers and runners often overlap; not a rule that non-runners underachieve, but an observed correlation. Simplest answer: it matters to him.
What matters to you?
If something matters, you think about it waking and sleeping, in hard seasons and easy ones. If you never make time, it likely does not matter as much as you claim. Honest self-talk targets excuses: "I can't eat healthy," "I don't have time to work out," "I don't know where to get started." Mentors and family have called him out when he neglected priorities; some relationships, ideas, and projects died from lack of watering; sometimes they truly did not matter. The honest work is naming what matters versus what you are avoiding.
- Healthy eating. Source and prepare food; learn through a transition period; without intentionality, default is the nearest drive-thru. Simple is not always easy.
- Training as responsibility. For people with resources and spare binge-watch hours, sweat is a standard, not a luxury. Personal responsibility to self and people nearby.
- Said values vs lived values. Interview answers and bio buzzwords (integrity, loyalty, hard work) mean little until actions match.
Calendar audit (Value-Action Gap)
A consultant asked what he prioritized. His stock answer: faith, family, business, leadership. Then: "Show me your calendar." Family time was "at night" (last). Church: "I used to go… I don't have time right now." He was working until 11 pm or midnight while calling family a priority. Realization: if you say it is a priority, the calendar must show it.
He Googled the pattern: the Value-Action Gap, acting in ways that contradict stated values (light version: claim health while living on pizza and beer; heavy version: claim integrity while cheating). Closing the gap tracks with happier, healthier, more successful lives. MLK Jr.: ultimate measure is where you stand in challenge and controversy, not comfort.
Whatever it takes (South Korea → Texas)
BPN growth is his proof case for making time. He started the company a year before college graduation and Army commissioning; built in scraps of time through IBOLC, Ranger School, Airborne, Fort Hood platoon leadership, and a nine-month Korea training rotation that he treats as a hinge for brand and life.
Landing at Camp Casey, BPN was ≈ $2,000/month revenue; four-year active-duty end approaching; living off that was impossible. Target before leaving Korea: $10,000/month. Every waking hour outside Army work went to BPN while peers watched movies and played games. Dad and brother Preston ran ops from a spare bedroom above the garage in Pennsylvania; Preston also held a full-time purchasing job. Bootstrapped and lean.
Typical Korea day: wake extra early for U.S. manufacturer calls (time zones), full Army day, then barracks work on BPN. He studied storytelling via Casey Neistat, DTC branding and ads, rebuilt e-commerce on Shopify, learned basic code, sent handwritten thank-you notes, filmed and posted the process. Within 90 days: $2k → $10k/month. Goal hit; not satisfied. He cites Kobe Bryant after 2009 Finals Game 2: "What's there to be happy about? Job's not finished."
Revenue was a health metric, not the whole story; top-line growth was survival. Waiting until ETS would have been easy; passion and energy were already there. He is explicit that revenue goals evaluate performance and paint health/growth/decline quickly; at that stage top line was survival. Waiting until after the Army would have been the safe story; he rejects planning life in five-to-twenty-year blocks as if those years were owed. Responsibility is the North Star for what you choose to matter. Before leaving Korea he asked Preston to quit in Pennsylvania and move to Texas all-in on BPN. Days later: job quit, U-Haul packed. No convincing required.
Landed Stateside October 2016. Next year: hardest and best; foundation for today's BPN; nearly out of money repeatedly; learning supply chain, inventory, weak financial modeling (CFO later); seven-figure annual revenue. Stress high; every morning still felt like Christmas. Passion makes time irrelevant: if it matters, you make time and do whatever it takes.
What: Korea side-hustle build of BPN to exit-viable revenue; Preston relocates.
When: Korea rotation; Stateside Oct 2016 onward.
Outcome: $2k→$10k/month in 90 days; brother all-in; foundation year under near-failure stress.
Make time; do not find time
Making time is proactive: look forward, backward-plan, eliminate non-essentials, shift duties. Finding time is reactive leftovers ("if we get to it"); rarely effective. Each night he reviews tomorrow's calendar with Stef: work, kids, chores, mutual support. Nightly prep 15-20 minutes: meals, charge devices, lay out running clothes (socks not inside out; seconds matter), untie shoes by the door, fuel in fridge, post-run supplements on counter, pans out, banana by the door. First ≈ 4.5 hours after waking are engineered. Saved minutes become email, catch-up, or silence before kids.
Long game: started BPN in 2012 with few responsibilities (single, no kids, no mortgage). Building took all of him; trying the same all-consuming start now would steal time from wife and kids. He made time then so he would not have to find scraps later. Later is not guaranteed; right now is. Starter loop: identify what matters → audit calendar → prune → forward-think and backward-plan → protect with boundaries.
- Name what actually matters (honest, not aspirational bio).
- Compare to the calendar; locate the Value-Action Gap.
- Prune: cut tinkering that steals from priorities.
- Forward-think / backward-plan the next day and the longer arc.
- Prep the night before so morning minutes are owned, not scavenged.
Routines versus responsibilities
A working routine feels trustworthy and can unlock flow; it still loses when it conflicts with responsibility. Law of Responsibility (as he states it): you are solely responsible for what you have or lack, what you achieve or fail to achieve, and who you become. A routine can support responsibilities; it must not outrank them.
Eating-disorder years from age 14: excessive workouts, skipped meals, bed hungry; rituals became "discipline" while the real responsibility (eat, live, socialize, not starve) was neglected. Later disruption: pre-kids mornings (coffee, read, emails, flexible run routes) felt essential to the job. After Charli, he assumed little would change. Newsflash: routines are flexible; responsibilities are not. He did not quit running or embrace neglect; he woke earlier, ran at night, or split miles. Show up for responsibilities first; adapt routines. Prioritizing routine over people burns trust.
Set boundaries and protect them
Jesse Itzler (on Rogan): early elimination was saying no to requests for time; time is cumulative; ten-minute syncs add up to missed days across a year. After Tennessee return, Bare announced an open-door policy as CEO; it stole productive time; he installed a chief of staff and killed the policy. Helping others matters; chronic overextension neglects your own mission. Boundaries protect priorities; airplane oxygen-mask logic: care for yourself so you can help others. Not selfishness; capacity.
2023 lesson: he said yes to everything from fear that no meant "you don't matter." Saying no is often respect for both sides; if everything is yes, nothing matters. After Charli's birth he planned two weeks fully off; failed to communicate and enforce; day-after emergency marketing call → days in office → weeks stolen. Resentment at the team; months later he owned it: unmarked boundaries cannot be respected. For his son's birth he set, communicated, and held two full weeks; team respected them. Setting is step one; communicating and enforcing is the rest. He restates the airplane rule: put your mask on first so you remain useful to others. Overnight life change, in his framing, starts with creating boundaries, communicating them, enforcing them, and repeating that loop. Fear of seeming uncaring kept him in chronic yes; the Charli leave failure made the cost personal and measurable.
Riding the red line
On a work flight he watched Ford v Ferrari: Christian Bale's character rides the Ford GT40 at the RPM red line, maximum designed speed without destroying the engine. Too far over → ruin; too far under → lose. Life seasons shift what matters (early twenties ≠ thirties); you cannot stack infinite priorities. Goal: maximize output while working on less.
Failed mode: burn the candle at both ends, yes to all, half-finish, pride in burnout; maximum speed, far from maximum performance (water-filling-the-room image). February 2024, returning as CEO after 13 months out, he committed to different methods: performance over speed; Stef's fear was zombie-mode relapse. He used the Fort Hood platoon-leader playbook: observe first, do not change day one.
Return audit: too many focuses; defense not offense; projects that did not move the needle; over-hiring and overhead; process and software layers (even software to manage software). Rebuild: org redesign with promotions, demotions, first-ever layoffs; turn off non-working experiments; cut underperforming products; outsource more; remove management layers; fewer meetings. Result: team 10 smaller, five key initiatives, overhead down seven figures on a 12-month forward view. Doing more by focusing on less: red line of performance.
Proactive time, protected boundaries, and fewer priorities beat burnout theater.
Unexpected challenges and courage
Chosen hard things (race, weight goal, company) let you set expectations. Unchosen hard things reveal character. Ranger School: designed 61 days; he failed two phases and spent 145 days; hunger, sleep debt, rucking, instructor fear. Watched tough men turn selfish: fights over weight, tears at recycle, MRE theft from teammates' rucks. Army values include selfless service and integrity; unexpected hunger exposed who kept them. Fort Hood Fridays: First Sergeant motor-pool inspections (cigarette butt → hours of cleaning) taught adaptability when not in control. True character shows in unplanned adversity. Aim to be the rock, not the thief in the ruck. Seek some unplanned stress on purpose to build coping skill.
Nashville faith season: wanted obedient follower, not Value-Action Gap "believer." Erwin McManus: winning is a wonderful outcome, not a great purpose; purpose rooted in who you are becoming survives wins and losses. Bare wants proud purpose and best-not-only-biggest building. Ideas without action do not move the needle; action requires courage. Without courage, wasted ability; without time spent on what matters to you, recognition chasing empties the life.
- Wake 4:30 AM; weekday runs 7-10 miles; base ~45/week, event 75-90
- G.1.M Sport: 40 g carbs, 700 mg sodium per mix
- Korea: $2k → $10k/month revenue in 90 days
- Nightly prep 15-20 minutes; morning block ~4.5 hours before office
- Ranger School: course 61 days; his path 145 days
- CEO return rebuild: −10 headcount, 5 initiatives, 7-figure overhead cut (12-month forward)
CHAPTER SIX · Be All In, Not All Consumed
Healthy obsession has a cost
He is for obsession: it built BPN from nothing and helped shave ninety minutes off his marathon time. Documented since first YouTube in 2014, healthy and unhealthy. Greatness has collateral damage; some expected, some surprise; only you price whether the cost is worth it. He does not claim a flawless record or a future free of mistakes; he claims awareness of consequences.
Healthy obsession needs focus, ownership, commitment, and discipline. It keeps you going on days you want to and, more importantly, on days you do not; it makes you self-powered. Unhealthy obsession takes over life and neglects family and duties. Food and fitness have controlled much of his life since the eating disorder began at fourteen. Some obsessions fuel meaning; others steal the life around them.
Coach Jeff Cunningham draws the line: all consumed turns something into identity; without it you become soulless and rudderless. All in means you compartmentalize energy for hyper-focus on a goal without destroying professional life, relationships, or personal health. The line blurs easily; knowing the feel of each side helps. Self-awareness plus all-in is powerful; lack of awareness plus all-consumed is a recipe for destruction. Often you do not notice until you are drowning in headspace, ignoring responsibilities, and lighting collateral damage behind you. Keyword he keeps from Jeff: destructive.
He tried to build BPN as healthily as possible and still lived uneven seasons; that is the entrepreneurial path. Difference between healthy and unhealthy obsession is self-awareness. Internal self-awareness: how clearly you see your values and whether actions reflect them. If you lack it, you may not know; the book exists to force new clarity so you can Go One More.
Premarital thorn
While preparing to marry Stef, counseling surfaced workaholism. He was (and remains) all in on BPN; believes he was born for the work; proud of start-early, work-until-eyes-close ethic ("rest when you're dead"). Collateral damage came with that mindset. Therapist: "Nick, who are you without your business? Who is Nick Bare without work?" Instant offense: felt human-less, reduced to product/brand; heard an attack on commitment to Stef and the coming marriage. Later: great question. A decade of identity fused to building BPN; entrepreneurs sell mind, body, and spirit into the company; that is Jeff's all consumed.
Early mission: build, be obsessed, work. Guiding North Star widened; BPN is still large, not the only mission. A defined North Star helps you stay all in rather than all consumed: vision ahead, not only feet in the moment; needs forward thinking and backward planning. Hard to be present and ambitious at once; more all-in and less all-consumed makes it easier.
All consumed: identity fused to the goal; neglect and collateral damage; often invisible until you are drowning.
Turn weakness into strength
Most of what blocks greatness is internal. Go One More was founded on failure: 2018 marathon training run (Introduction), conscious choice to quit, then steps that overcame weakness. We spotlight strengths and hide weaknesses out of insecurity; many strengths began as weaknesses. Opportunities live there.
Eating disorder: he calls it a weakness (some may find that framing offensive; he owns it). Mind was weak around food; sometimes still is; scar remains like a healed deep cut; more control now; understands fuel for mind and body. Obsession with starving (days without food; cheeseburger would not move him) was dangerous power. As awareness grew, he redirected restraint into discipline over wants, thoughts, and temptations. Weakness → strength, or it consumes the rest of your life.
Recovery: gym after months of breakdown; eat more; smarter food; prioritize protein; body and mind regained strength and confidence; not linear; slip-ups happened; committed for self and family. Fell in love with the journey; life's work in nutrition and fitness came from a weakness that could have killed him.
College: nutrition at Indiana University of Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh; fell for supplements, science, bodybuilding, powerlifting, gym time. Industry felt like Wild West: banned substances, hospital injuries, brands launching and dying. He bought bulk ingredients from reputable suppliers, mixed dorm pre-workout on a food scale into clear baggies, sold to friends for a few dollars (pre-workout market, not drugs). Passion became opportunity.
What: Eating-disorder history → nutrition major → dorm pre-workout → USAA-funded Flight launch.
When: Teen years through college; BPN founding era.
Outcome: $20k inventory bet; flagship product lineage; company as redirected obsession.
A Meaningful Mission
Interviews with entrepreneurs, athletes, and professionals: high performers follow a North Star shaped by ambition, desire, passion, and mission, not only crowd scripts. Prove-yourself-right starts with honest answers: What is your purpose? What does success look like? What do fulfillment and happiness feel like? External validation should not author those answers. Without a North Star, work feels meaningless and commitment frays.
Without vision, no direction. He cites Psalm 29:18 (vision line): where there is no vision, the people perish. Put North Star in front of relationships, business, everything. Effective vision answers:
- Where are we headed?
- What does the path forward look like?
- What do I need to focus on right now to get there?
Lewis Howes, The Greatness Mindset: labels purpose a "Meaningful Mission"; decide who you want to become and that becomes identity; clear identity makes behaviors easier. On Bare's podcast: enemy of greatness is lack of meaningful mission; clarity lets you say yes/no to what serves the mission; reclaim power and energy; person without mission wanders and can become destructive.
Bare sweats the dinner-party question "What is your purpose?" when it demands an elaborate "change the world" line. He once fused mission and purpose; they differ:
| Term | His definition |
|---|---|
| Meaningful mission | Evolves by season; pursuit of achievement, growth, change, impact; for him, much of the work is BPN |
| Life purpose | Larger and steadier: be more like Christ; follower of Jesus; eternal life framing; foundation for values, how he raises family, treats others, approaches work; resist "normal" for transformative obedience |
| Purpose behind a goal | Why/passion under a race or project: maximize human potential; curiosity about commitment; document so others know they control variables |
He fought faith purpose as too lofty; accepting Jesus as Lord clarified other domains. Passionless work is unsustainable; hard to endure the process. Howes again: clear image of ideal self as North Star drives incremental change toward fulfilling success. Clear purpose + mission → can be all in. Unclear → default to all consumed by things, opinions, and goals that will not matter.
- Be honest with yourself about yourself (first step).
- Define greatness / mission so identity can lock behaviors.
- Use mission as yes/no filter for energy.
- Separate evolving mission from deeper purpose (Christlike foundation vs BPN-season work).
- Attach a why (passion) under each major goal so the process is endurable.
Knowing when to sprint
A sprint: predefined span where a team or person works specific goals at raised intensity. He used the pattern more than a decade before naming it. Completing, denting, or chipping a larger aim all count. Between sprints: more rest, slower intensity, more planning.
Formal sprint planning arrived via tech agencies after he outgrew solo website work (designers, developers, researchers, project manager). Taught product planning and execution. Old meaning of sprint: all-out until failure. New operating system for life, business, fitness, personal goals: specificity and intensity.
Train versus work out: recreational movement promotes health but lacks specificity; training needs plan, structure, periodization. All-in work uses training mentality, not casual workout vibe. Proactive sprints: time allocated, focus clear. Reactive sprints: plans change, things break, people quit; feel chaotic and unsustainable. Reps build resiliency. His sequence: stop, drop, and take inventory (physical writing, not only mental), then sprint.
Inventory questions (full list):
- What happened?
- What does success look like if this sprint addresses the problem?
- What can I do right now?
- What can I not do right now?
Last two matter most for overwhelm: much stress targets work that cannot start for days, weeks, or months, or that is condition-based on prior tasks. Usually less is actionable now than the feeling claims. Then take action: action eliminates fear, fights stress, is the strategic sprint toward solution.
Personal life sprint: friends attended a two-week couples therapy workshop on a farm; phones banned; no work; hyper-focus on issues and communication. Stef and he have not gone yet; plan to; proactive all-in on the marriage. Entire life balances proactive planning and intentional responding; maturity prefers response over reaction. Sprints optional but powerful for amplified intensity on less, for a time.
What we want versus what we like
All-in versus all-consumed is deliberate choice. Daniel Z. Lieberman (The Molecule of More, podcast with Bare): choice and dopamine shape progress; discipline sits in the middle. Chainsaw metaphor: dopamine built technological blessings and has no brake; always wants more; can save or destroy.
Want ≠ like. Brains invent wants (social media, status, keeping up). Wants are imagined futures that often fail to fulfill on arrival. Likes are already experienced; real use-value. Dopamine drives desire for future rewards; Here and Now (H&N) neurotransmitters (serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, endocannabinoids) support present appreciation. Lieberman line he quotes: too much dopamine → productive misery; too much H&N → happy indolence.
2022 ten-year business anniversary gift: entrepreneur-internet said he "deserved" a present; saw a new Chevy Corvette; ordered it. Months of fantasy ("change my life"). Arrived fully loaded ~six months later; one drive, then garage; felt like an idiot at intersections ("Batmobile"); parked at the back of the BPN lot; told almost no one; new wheels/tires, wrap, body kit changed nothing. Want without like. All consumed ignores H&N and rides dopamine; all in holds both present likes and future desire.
Balance is shamed and redefined: not an on/off switch between work and pleasure; more a dimmer driven by seasons and sprints between ambition (dopamine) and contentment (H&N: evening walk, dinner with family, porch coffee). He aims to be all in on a balanced life rather than all consumed by more. Impulsive dopamine pattern: sit on the urge; wait; weigh benefits and later feelings; distinguish desire from satisfaction; pursue only when fairly sure like will match want. That fuels Go One More clarity.
Flip the switch
Never too late to move from all consumed to all in; fatherhood forced the practice. Last bodybuilding prep (2023) unlike marathon preps: underestimated difficulty under new responsibilities. Calorie restriction, depleted energy, impeded hormones, wrecked metabolic feel; next meal occupies the mind; definition of all-consuming from wake to sleep; worsens near show day; every calorie, scale, body-fat percent, dysmorphia. Respects the sport; decided last show; horrible lifestyle overlay on prior severe eating disorder; process destroying relationships; misaligned with priorities.
Firm line, not blurry: peak eating disorder was all-consuming; control as safety. Fitness goals cross when healthy habit becomes unhealthy. Line-cross dinner: Tex-Mex in Georgetown, Texas with friends; Charli ~six months. He did not want untracked food; asked how chicken fajitas were prepared (oil marinade, grilled with oil); politely asked to rinse chicken before grill; food still dripping; wiped chicken with wet napkins onto a second plate while mind spiraled (prep ruined, fat gain, should have brought own food). Looked at Charli watching; shame about the model and heritability of disordered eating. Knew: all consumed.
Flip restores focus on responsibilities over routines; intentional decisions/time/obligations; Meaningful Mission. Where is the switch? Prior chapters: awareness of where you are, where you want to be, how you get there; prove yourself right (all in) versus proving others wrong (all consumed). All in: driver's seat; endure process; consistently good; delayed gratification; love journey over destination trophy.
He asked Stef what she sees when he flips; need someone who will name all-consumed. Sequence: identify what matters (Ch. 5) → align schedule to it → responsibilities over routines. You can flip now.
Don't clear your head; find clarity
Balance questions (when to sprint, when to flip, dopamine vs contentment) resolve through clarity. Jeff Cunningham: people say they run to "clear their head"; they want clarity. Cleared head = empty (limited benefit). Clarity = organized thoughts. Without it, busy noisy mind turns self-destructive. Running is Bare's organization engine; desk deep-work often invites distraction; he needs movement for deep thought.
Self-destructive stretches still happen with awareness; solution is awareness plus definition. Concepts in the book, especially all-in vs all-consumed, mitigate self-destruction. He argues most missed goals die from self-destruction (disorganized thought), not only tornadoes or trauma.
Cal Newport, Deep Work: hustle culture seduces busy-ness and edge-seeking that is not productive; find solitude, presence, quiet; stop being busy; be present and make up ground; focus on Meaningful Mission. Line: "Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not." Carve daily solitude, even minutes, to audit all-in versus all-consumed.
Obsession is allowed; identity fusion and neglect are not.
- YouTube documentation since 2014; eating-disorder onset age 14
- Marathon improvement cited: ~90 minutes shaved via obsessed training
- USAA loan approved: $20,000 (program up to $25k) → all into Flight inventory
- Corvette "want" purchase: 2022 ten-year mark; ~6 months to delivery; dislike within weeks
- Bodybuilding line-cross: 2023 prep; Charli ~6 months at fajita dinner
- Couples workshop model: 2 weeks, phone-free farm (planned, not yet attended)
CHAPTER SEVEN · Doubt Is Only Dangerous When You Start Doubting Yourself
Only you need to believe
Announce something bold and hard; the world ranks your failure odds (best friend, stranger, family, social observers). Doubt from day one of BPN and of physical aims did not block success unless he adopted it. Not victim framing: some root against you; fine if it does not stop massive action. Imagine talent wasted because one comment took root. Draw a line in the sand.
Authenticity is hard under self-doubt and insecurity. Once he saw those insecurities gave no advantage, he chose more vulnerability and honesty.
Podcast with Matt Beaudreau (left Stanford professorship to reform broken education): biggest parental mistake is "They outsource everything." Bingo for more than parents: outsourcing thoughts, ideas, opinions to experts builds an inauthentic self. Delegate parts; do not outsource the core.
Doubt is only dangerous when you start doubting yourself. Consuming doubt kills hope; confidence that you can overcome obstacles keeps you in the fight. Chapter tour: fears are normal; believe in your abilities; end perfectionism; find victory in finishing; stop unhealthy comparison; treat nothing as unbelievable; block noise; control what is yours. Belief is resilient, adaptable, relentless under denial.
Your gut is calibrated
Worst decisions, money losses, and course wrecks often came from neglecting gut intuition. Gut calibrates from experience, exposure, repetition; ages into higher odds of good calls (he likens it to self-improving systems).
2023: stepped from CEO to chief creative officer (brand awareness), against gut. Doubted he could take the business to the next level and be the husband/father he wanted; doubted skills, experience, capacity. Some insecurity internal; some from respected voices ("time to hire a professional operator"; "you got it here, now it needs greater industry experience to scale"). Enough outside doubt became self-doubt; greatest mistake; costly across ~fifteen months.
Soon after: formal investment-bank process toward minority PE (Ch. 4). Large share of capital to shareholders (he largest); smaller to balance sheet. ~Year of work; days before wire, 10 pm Wednesday call from managing director: dead at felt 99.9% certainty. Wrong move: as Beaudreau warned, he outsourced the wrong things; left the driver's seat; ignored a decade-calibrated gut that he was the right person to lead the next level.
Bedros Keuilian, Man Up: negative belief system is crippling; beliefs dictate habits; habits dictate actions; actions dictate outcomes; belief is everything. Achievement or failure starts in belief; doubt blocks starting. Confidence grows with prep and practice; sometimes you look in the mirror, own the outcome, and do the damn thing (not empty affirmations). Own your life; do not let someone else own it.
Early mockery of the business challenged others' courage; buying that narrative would have erased today's position. Everyone can doubt you; you stay in the driver's seat until you believe them. Keuilian: you fly the fighter jet until doubters turn you into a crop duster unworthy of battle. No secret formula separates "high performers"; a thousand failure forecasts matter only if seeded in your mind. Two common seeds: comparison and perfectionism.
What: CEO step-down from absorbed doubt → near-closed PE collapse on a late call.
When: 2023 into ~15-month fallout arc.
Outcome: Costly proof to stop outsourcing core belief and gut.
Unhealthy comparison vs healthy inspiration
Technology and social media intensify judging others' skills and wins against yours. If you could eliminate one toxin for happiness and purpose: unhealthy comparison. Competitive framing often fails the healthy test. Domains: success, money, followers, bodies, possessions, athletic numbers. He still catches himself; awareness now separates useful competition from destruction; dopamine still tempts reactive loops.
Favorite saying: "You can't compare your chapter one to someone else's chapter ten." Early chapters hold ignorance, naiveté, burn-the-boats energy; intimidating unknowns; humbling and rewarding. Be proud; be honest about what you do not know; ask for help; do not downplay goals; stand tall toward your North Star (your chapter ten, twenty, fifty).
Most personal and professional progress came head-down on business, fitness, body, team, family. Head-down focus kills comparison distraction and holds trajectory.
Running spiral: Lady Bird Lake loop, Austin; holding unsustainable paces to match nearby runners; crushed by strangers' posted splits, heart rates, easy-looking efforts after finishing feeling strong. Self-talk: suck; not made for this; bigger-boned; never fast. Doubt lived a minute; he crushed it. Counterfactual: where would he be if that doubt had won? "Just running" at face value; in practice it changed business, reach, story; clarity engine for Go One More. He stopped comparing his running journey to anyone else's; not because he was perfectly proactive, but because comparison was exhausting and empty. Inspiration over comparison is a personal responsibility; you choose inputs.
Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: nothing original; embrace influence; school yourself on others' best work; mix and reimagine. Not compare-to-defeat; watch, listen, learn. "You're only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with"; mom's "garbage in, garbage out"; job is to collect ideas. Do not lock in solitary madness; do not shield from all outside work. Unhealthy comparison → feel bad, resent, bitter, angry, self-doubt. Healthy inspiration → creativity, optimism, enthusiasm, fuel. He has invented enemy narratives about people ahead (larger business, stronger performance, faster races, leaner bodies); that attitude blocked the leader/father/husband he wanted and misaligned with Go One More. Journey is unique; process rate builds necessary experience.
Healthy inspiration: study excellent work; remix; stay in your lane's timeline.
Nothing is unbelievable
Late 2000s Matthew McConaughey: bankable rom-com lead (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Wedding Planner). After ~fifteen years, roles felt too easy/safe; wanted drama. Agent path; industry: not you, even for a pay cut. He cut rom-coms/adventure comedies entirely; one-way ticket into limbo. ~Year in: feared he had written himself out of Hollywood. Held course; calls yielded silence; felt forgotten. Wife stabilized him; he doubted future opportunities, not himself. At ~nineteen months, ready to coach middle-school football and leave the industry; phone rang. Drama roles; anonymity reset; "McConaissance"; Academy Award, Best Actor, Dallas Buyers Club. To Bare: moments of doubt; underneath, belief he had the goods.
On "unbelievable" as foolish dictionary default: nips how high the ceiling can be and how low the basement; fails justice to awe and to ugliness (nature or mankind). Extend bandwidth; look hard things in the eye. One conversation changed Bare's vocabulary for life; he interrupts himself mid-sentence to replace the word. Tagging a feat unbelievable doubts both the feat and your chance to be the one who does it.
Fail forward
Set a "hard" physical goal every year (hard is relative). Without hard stress, body, mind, and spirit atrophy. Hard enough to require a fight; not a guarantee; can break you and rebuild you. Teddy Roosevelt, Sorbonne "man in the arena": credit to the one marred by dust, sweat, blood, who errs and comes up short, who spends himself; not cold timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
Why choose hard:
- Humbling self-awareness. Ambitious preps reveal commitment gaps; arena fights or chews the unprepared; success not guaranteed; fail forward by naming weaknesses (perfection is fantasy in an imperfect world).
- Healthy inferiority. Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked: healthy feeling of inferiority compares you to ideal self (ambition fuel); inferiority complex compares you to others (inadequacy, status fixation, destruction). Questions from healthy inferiority: What else am I capable of? How can I do this better? How can I be the best? What must I improve?
- Confidence construction. Society's fault line: low self-esteem and self-dislike. Confidence does not arrive with age; it is trained by goals, plans, work, finishes. Reps bring wins and losses; failure is good if learned from; stacked wins enlarge confidence.
Misogi (via Jesse Itzler): challenge hard enough that success is not guaranteed; if you always finish, raise the aim. Year-defining event: publish a book, run 100 miles, launch a podcast, become a private pilot. Bare agrees; prefers a hard physical goal. Hard things → more opportunity, fulfillment, experience, growth; expose weaknesses as a roadmap. Stress is required: training micro-tears → repair → stronger fiber; mind and body adapt similarly. Run toward stress. Without arenas and failure, you keep doubting capability; only action eliminates fear of failure; fail forward or self-doubt caps the life.
Choose your superpowers
Superhero traits he values are mortal: strong, confident, brave, courageous, selfless, tough. You choose superpowers. Five he refines: self-accountability, consistency, courage, curiosity, toughness. When overwhelmed, third-person snap: you control deployment; put them to work. Epictetus: not what happens, but how you react. Contractor toolkit metaphor: many tools, few daily (hammer, screwdriver, tape measure); choose your daily set. Focus: courage and curiosity.
Courage = action on belief; confidence alone is belief. Lack of courage explains stuck weight loss, stuck unhappiness, stuck company dreams. Wanting sub-2:40 without steps, or a $1B business without plan/hires/work ethic, is wishing. Courage creates momentum that lets curiosity get answers.
Regret and shame freeze people. His stance after being called a turd: agree, and keep going. That is courage: continue; do not let ten-years-ago or yesterday pin you.
Audit questions: What do you want? What don't you want? What should life look/feel like? Do you want to be happy enough to change thinking or action? Write it; courage takes steps.
Curiosity without courage is useless. Bare's business, marathons, military, Ranger School, infantry platoon leadership, scale, sub-2:39: curiosity-sparked. Blocks: self-doubt; pessimistic circles that spread fear "like bedbugs" and shelve the idea. Do not let others' fears author your courage. Practice open-mindedness; exit echo chambers; consume varied backgrounds and beliefs to raise perspective capacity. Closed mind caps professional and personal growth. Curiosity releases dopamine desire; courage explores it. Belief precedes ability.
They will call you crazy
HARDY (Michael Hardy): successful songwriter before wider fame; Bare liked early radio-catchy work; The Mockingbird & the Crow (2023) changed the artist's lane toward rock he wanted after years of giving country what labels/radio/crowds demanded. Living proof of the chapter title.
ACM Songwriter of the Year speech: ~seven years earlier a tip-jar napkin said "quit" (~2015 show). If he had believed the napkin, he would have missed wins, setbacks, and potential. He persevered through country success, then through doubt about leaving the lane. Relentless drive toward passion-aligned life; had he stopped for others' doubt, he never reaches today's position.
Others will call you crazy; doubt journey, choices, goals. Let them, if what you do is legal, moral, ethical, and right by his faith framing. Until you doubt yourself, their forecast cannot break drive, motivation, or discipline. Unapologetic self-direction, under those constraints, is beautiful to watch.
Let them doubt; do not recruit their forecast into your self-talk.
- CEO-step-down fallout arc cited ~15 months
- McConaughey drama bet: ~19 months out of the old lane; ~15 years prior industry run
- HARDY napkin ~2015; rock pivot album 2023
- Five named superpowers; yearly Misogi / hard physical goal
CHAPTER EIGHT · Legacy Can't Be Bought. It Must Be Built.
Butterfly effects and the ten-year mark
All of us write a life story; decisions and indecisions ripple; sometimes we see impact on others. The Butterfly Effect (Ashton Kutcher as Evan Treborn, 2004): blackouts let him revisit childhood, alter choices, warp futures; "fixes" create worse trauma; smallest edits remake a life. Other time-travel stories exist; this one stuck. Lesson without sci-fi machinery: choices shape how you live, where you end, and what remains after you.
August 2022: thick life transition as new dad; celebrating ten years in business (from a small Indiana, Pennsylvania college apartment registering with the state). Potential he imagined at year zero was a fraction of what he imagines now. Gratitude activation for the community: Austin event; friends, family, fans, customers; national and international travel; downtown miles; East Austin pop-up; meet-and-greet. Before the run, a woman with her seven-year-old daughter: thank you; no male father figure at home; his content and message were the stand-in role model.
Fitness-transformation stories were familiar and powerful; this hit differently as father to a baby girl. Conversation entered North Star and Meaningful Mission. Eyes opened to responsibility that comes with reach. Legacy he must keep building; reason to continue since the start. Clarity metaphor: when someone hands you a phone for a group photo, wipe the lens so the memory is crisp; she wiped his lens on legacy.
Story = collection of Meaningful Missions across a lifetime; North Star fits them to purpose. Many shrink legacy to posthumous lines (generous, humble, entrepreneur, athlete, rich, big house). Enough for some; not for him. His bar: legacy changes how people think and act, forever. Role-model priority rises in this life chapter; you will not be one for everyone; you can be for values-aligned people. Built from mission choices, ownership of decisions, actions, courage.
Purpose and direction (Cookie the dog)
Accomplishment always required a start; the hard part is where and on what. Bedros Keuilian podcast: family dog Cookie (Mastiff × German Shepherd; eight months; already huge) dug holes across the yard. Trainer after weeks: this dog needs clear purpose, direction, mission; highly active; absent owner-given purpose, she invents one (destruction). Bedros's flash: humans do the same; without service, routine, structure, and purpose, he digs holes and self-destructs.
Bare maps sabotage seasons to unclear Meaningful Mission; fix is proactive step-back and intentional reinforcement of what he is meant to work on; constantly assess showing up for responsibilities. Cookie lessons: (1) absent purpose/direction, self-invented missions trend destructive; (2) daily messes are not fixed by a barked command; lay and build a foundation of purpose, direction, and Meaningful Mission.
Arthur Brooks (Harvard happiness teaching; From Strength to Strength): four happiness factors: faith, family, community, meaningful work. Bare links happiness and legacy; asks whether a "proud" legacy that required total happiness sacrifice is authentic. Chapter focus: faith. Meaningful mission adapts by season, responsibilities, goals; purpose feels lofty without transcendence. Brooks: faith as anything transcendent that helps you escape the boring sitcom of your life; need relief, perspective, peace; get "little"/small by zooming out daily.
Perspective reset: June 2019. Mother Linda Bare diagnosed with ovarian cancer ~six months prior; final hospice days at home. Day before death, to Nick and Preston at the bedside: "If you ever want to see me again, you have to believe in God." Zoom-out: she would miss wedding, births, later chapters; what seemed to matter shrank; he committed to building a relationship with the Lord. His purpose: servant of God, obedient to scripture; imperfect, ongoing work. Readers may not share the belief; he still holds purpose as foundation and fulfillment of purpose through work. Mission evolves; fuzzy empty seasons are axe-sharpening for the next. Stay true to purpose while aiming missions at the North Star → legacy you can stand behind, authentically you.
Legacy requires ownership
Look at today: who/what you see is the sum of past decisions (wins and losses). Own it at twenty or eighty. No durable blame on economy, family, friends, boss, job. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership: once excuses and blame stop and ownership covers everything, people are compelled to act; better leaders, followers, teammates; more skilled at driving mission. Make ownership part of mission for choices and outcomes.
Growth is chosen daily; not free; usually invites failure; much growth follows more bad than good (not a license to seek poor choices; a warning not to fear them while pursuing greatness). He imagines the day before death as maximum honesty and peace: no more discovery days; journey's final chapter; must own relationships maintained and things accomplished; no blame for wrong turns; end state = millions of large and small decisions; aim to be proud of the man and the legacy.
Built in drops, lost in buckets
Beautiful constraint: legacy must be built; cannot be bought, sold, or cheated; no express lane. Mason: brick by brick until house becomes home. Nothing great comes fast/easy; if it does, be cautious.
Bucket metaphor: birth = empty clean bucket under a faucet. Full-blast fill is fastest and uncontrolled; quality unmonitored; end-of-life confusion about arrival. Many live that way. Slow drip: deliberate, intentional, clarity-guided; pause when water contaminates or bucket needs repair; longer path; proud fill.
Mentors: some daily, some only through books/podcasts/stories; study entrepreneurs, athletes, leaders, philosophers; accessibility of content is high; unused by those who also refuse ownership. Kevin Plank (Under Armour): "Brands are all about trust. That trust is built in drops and lost in buckets." Applies to entrepreneurial trust and to life legacy. No overnight success; overnight destruction is real. Lifetime of drops tips with wrong choices; intimidation should become accountability, not paralysis. Bigger builds and more people raise the hardness of holding standards; less owned responsibility raises tip risk.
Where people go wrong: stop following intuition; distract from purpose; let others dictate trajectory. Non-listeners may meet anger; people-pleasing paths go nowhere and cannot build the legacy you want. Stay true to values and decisions.
- Fill drop by drop (slow, intentional decisions).
- Monitor water quality (values alignment); repair cracks early.
- Remember Plank's law: trust/legacy accumulates slowly and can empty fast.
- Reject people-pleasing as a steering system.
- Own every season's sum; growth invites mistakes without excusing blame-shifting.
A generational inflection point
Shame pattern: end of life feeling incomplete, narrated as family of origin, geography, resources, mentorship, low pay (returns to Bedros theme from Ch. 2). What holds most people back is the story of why they didn't/couldn't: blame without responsibility. Hard birth environments are real; choice for change remains uncomfortable, inconvenient, difficult, and available.
Bare does not claim deprivation: small-town central Pennsylvania; rolling hills; mom schoolteacher; dad programmer for business computer systems; brother three years younger; team sports with parents at games; extended family; yearly vacations; love. Parents did not start the business; they supported and listened without always stepping in. Childhood he wants for his kids; acknowledges many never get it.
Opposite environments still produce entrepreneurs, athletes, leaders via courage to decide for change. Exception thinking: who says you cannot be the 1 percent who marks a generational inflection point? Inflection: point on a curve where direction changes. Family/community trends (occupation, income, marriage, education) feel destiny; they are not mandatory. Courage can shift trajectory for you and generations after; personal responsibility; impact = legacy.
Examples: first to college; first into health/fitness; first to follow Jesus Christ; first into financial freedom. Need not be Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, president, cancer-cure discoverer, or multimillion exit; intent is to shift what the family believes possible; courage to try and possibly fail; sometimes people need to see someone swing.
Friend's story: household against "healthy" across parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, extended kin; overweight, high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, early disease path. College with Bare: started gym and smarter food; leaner; felt better; energy, sleep, mood, confidence rose. Free time shifted from games/bars/pizza/Netflix to learning machine: nutrition books, YouTube workouts, weekend fitness expos. Major switch: accounting → nutrition, aiming for registered dietitian. Saved his own life and pulled family around; hesitant relatives followed after seeing results and hearing consequences. Current and future relatives moved. Power of one courageous choice.
Be resourceful: pick up the book, podcast, article; study prior lives. Someone may one day read about your life because you reset the curve.
The lighthouse
Dark, negative, noisy world; calling to be light; name what is accepted but wrong; stand when pulled down; fight for values. Alexander Hamilton: those who stand for nothing fall for anything. Lighthouse: rooted structure; source of truth for ships off course; more essential as darkness grows; waves erode; sea life attaches and eats material; still stands across generations of storms; faithful, obedient, reliable; mission = "Follow me."
Linda Bare was his lighthouse. Died June 2019 from cancer; legacy remarkable. Never only told how to live; showed. Selfless servant to family, friends, work, God. Career and much personal life in special education and Special Olympics coaching. Funny, joyful, energetic, passionate, caring, spontaneous. Through chemotherapy and aggressive pain medication she still showed up as the light. Taught toughness, strength, vulnerability, empathy, and how to build a proud legacy.
His responsibility: light in darkness; role model as father, leader, business owner, friend, content creator. Every audio, video, or still is story; story can change many lives; write it wisely.
Slow fill under ownership; one brave curve-change can redirect generations.
- BPN ten-year mark event: August 2022, Austin
- Mother's death: June 2019 (ovarian cancer; ~6 months from diagnosis)
- Brooks happiness quartet: faith, family, community, meaningful work
- Cookie: 8 months old Mastiff × German Shepherd when purpose lesson landed
- Legacy mechanic: drops to fill, buckets to lose (Plank)
CHAPTER NINE · You Can Go Fast Alone, but You Can Go Much Further Together
Life as a hundred-mile race
Hypothetically live to one hundred; a classic ultra is one hundred miles. Anything can break; greatness can also show. The race is more than miles: highs and lows, injuries, trips, deep talk, lonely stretches, early crew banter, late conversations with God. For Bare these races are no longer belt notches or medals; they must unlock unexplored ground. Largest unlock across racing and life: you can go fast alone, but you can go much further together.
Traveling with others sometimes slows the clock; quality of distance and of companions matters more. Right people aligned on values and mission support, push, and hold accountability. Possibilities scale with imagination once that force exists.
The lone-wolf lie
Mark Manson: if you cringe at your former self, that is growth; never stop cringing. Before BPN team and community, Bare branded himself a lone wolf and bragged. He now cringes. Entrepreneurship is lonely; not everyone is cut out for it. Early Bare: naïve, bootstrapped, over his head, no demand, nobody knew Bare Performance Nutrition or what BPN stood for. He moved fast and alone because that was what he had. Control felt clean: no disappointment from others, streamlined process, sole ownership of win or loss. Growth of the brand made that mindset a ceiling.
Most startups need a solo season (weeks, months, even years). That is not an excuse to wait for a team before starting. Minimize people while you set foundation and values; do not romanticize permanent lone-wolf identity. Some of his projects today are still solo; if everything were, he would be lonely and capped.
Preston Bare (brother) was the first believer who took a massive risk; joined the vision; vision became shared; moved to Texas 2016; building together since. Daily question he gets: "How do I find my people?" Answer: stay firm on beliefs and values; they find you and you find them. Not from the couch or purely digital contact. Put yourself in events and activations that match the mission; if none exist, create them (that creation may be the mission). Embrace the discomfort of showing up.
Early content still embarrasses him; temptation was to delete for polish. He kept it. Starting meaningful work never arrives with all answers; blurry path; future-you will cringe; that is growth. Old material is gold for legacy and for others mid-struggle. Former self carried a chip: prove doubters wrong; most efficient A→B seemed alone. "You're either with me or against me." Small perspective from limited experience, amplified by online entrepreneur lone-wolf mythology. "They sure fooled me."
Fatherhood changed him; shift began before kids. He still loves building BPN, family life, relationships, fitness; he no longer wants to build alone. Impact is stronger as a force than as one person. Living Go One More is not only what you finished, but how and with whom.
Lone-wolf identity: pride that blocks scale; "with me or against me"; capped distance.
More than the miles (Leadville 100)
Leadville 100: mythical Rocky Mountain ultra; fifty out and fifty back; 15,600 feet of ascent/descent. Lottery pulled 2021. By then BPN had people ready to jump in. Whole crew went to Leadville to race as a team and document it; theme: if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. Documentary: More Than the Miles.
Calling it a hundred-mile race understates crew, support, and compounding factors. Only Bare ran the course; crew carried equal or greater load: fuel at checkpoints, refills, support through dark segments. A solid crew can make or break an ultra.
Prep from landing: drive checkpoints, scout terrain, map familiarization, rehearsals. Night-before meeting: phase walkthrough by checkpoint; maps and docs with plan, ETA per stop, nutrition/equipment pickups and drops. Race day: everyone knew role and plan.
Military infantry camaraderie returned inside BPN: person left and right wants you to win; "we" not "I"; 100 percent mission commitment. Right people share responsibility and accountability so you do not hold everything alone even when it feels like you do.
Race went dark; world closed in. That is why you sign up: extremes reveal strengths and weaknesses unavailable on easy days. At the finish base the whole team ran him in; crossed together. Stef on the arc: two years earlier four people; now a crowd all-in on Nick's crazy dream, which became everyone's crazy dream. Leadville proved the proverb in flesh.
What: Leadville 100 as team mission with full checkpoint rehearsal and shared finish.
When: 2021; documented as More Than the Miles.
Outcome: Finish as "we"; lived proof that far requires together.
You need the right people
Ben Francis (Gymshark cofounder/CEO) visited BPN HQ; warehouse walk; line Bare never forgot: three determinants of business success or failure: people, brand, and product. Need all three. People build businesses; wrong people cap distance in company and in life.
Marcus Collins, For the Culture: culture systems. System one: how we see the world; identity as compass. System two: shared way of life under shared beliefs. Attraction to same worldview lowers friction; raises collaboration, community, fulfillment.
Early BPN had to be lone wolf. Team "kind of built itself" once he was loud and persistent about who BPN was, mission, and values (in person, events, content). Tattooed "Go One More" on his arm 2019; thousands followed. Vocal worldview attracted culture and community; right people raised hands organically.
Caveat learned in scale: the proverb needs an ending. Complacency, dropped gut trust, blurry North Star, quiet vision → wrong hires; people who did not share values; others who lost passion and stayed too long → anger, resentment, unhealthy culture. Decision stack: step down as CEO, move to Nashville, leave ops: felt right, proved wrong. Colin Powell, My American Journey: leadership is solving problems; day soldiers stop bringing you problems is the day you stopped leading (lost confidence you can help, or concluded you do not care). Strong people remained, but they stopped bringing him problems.
Wrong people = poison: invited into the ecosystem; spread across life and departments; damage everyone. Wrong crew lowers the floor daily and caps the ceiling. Leader of life, family, or business owns the standard for who joins. Best communities are not always biggest; they are strongest around shared vision and beliefs. Full formula: go fast alone; go much further together if you have the right people.
- Product that earns trust.
- Brand that carries story and mission (cannot be bought; must be forged).
- People who share values and bring problems to the leader.
- Caveat: together only multiplies when the crew is right; wrong people are poison.
Choose allies over enemies
Lone-wolf immaturity treated similar builders as enemies: competitors and even friends succeeding sparked anger and resentment; not Christlike leadership. Shift: people become enemies if you view them as enemies; allies if you view them as allies. Someone's parallel success does not subtract from your potential. John F. Kennedy: a rising tide lifts all boats. Alliance over war is often available even without full partnership.
David Senra, Founders podcast #358, on John Mackey (Whole Foods): early store in a three-story Austin house; single-store wholesale pricing worse than multi-location chains. Mackey partnered with other natural-food competitor stores to buy volume and improve pricing. Counterintuitive; boats rose together.
Bare once cast outsiders as enemies and got enemies. Ally framing changed relationships, business approach, and happiness; strengthened confidence in values he was installing in the team.
Call on the coach
Go One More is action and, more importantly, outcome. Sometimes you need a coach to move from all-consumed to all-in. Hire, ask, seek honesty: someone who says what you need, not what you want. People choices (free time, work, home, inputs, coaches) are among life's highest-leverage decisions.
Youth sports: baseball, hockey, soccer, football; many coaches blur; occasional ex-pro or hometown legend excited the room and still failed to deliver state titles. Best coaches are not always best athletes; they love the game, the athletes, and coaching. Gap between very good and remarkable is large; remarkable coaches change trajectory.
Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy: ego blocks craft mastery, creative insight, working with others, loyalty, longevity, repeating success; magnet for enemies and errors. Ego of solo accomplishment held Bare back for years; progress happened; more was available with accepted help.
Mentors: some free because they saw potential; some expensive; some expensive and harmful (intentions opaque until tested). Win-win mentor/mentee is the standard. Examples of remarkable:
- Jeff Cunningham: guided marathon from 3:24 to 2:39 in three years; drove an hour for sessions; flew overnight to finish lines; says yes to the phone.
- Chris Hickey: prior sports-nutrition CEO; multiple exits; advisor to Bare and BPN; hard conversations; pulled him out of all-consumed seasons; decisions sometimes against Hickey's own short-term gain when mentee's interest required it.
Remarkable coaches lead where you need to go, not only where you want; call out nonsense tactfully; invest emotionally.
- Known or comfortably knowable; trusted
- Enjoyable to spend real time with
- Open and honest
- Knowledgeable in the field or goal
- Makes time when needed (within reason)
- Shares big values
- Leads to need-path, not only want-path
- Dedicated and emotionally invested in your success
- Believes in you; pushes into uncomfortable limits
The manifesto (and return to the boat)
December 2023: manifesto written late night (couldn't sleep); shared with BPN employees, then social. Timing: decision to move back to Texas, close Nashville office, reassume CEO. Vision and promise, not empty slogans. Themes: show up authentic and unapologetic; brand story/mission/vision cannot be bought; forged in hardship; fuel performance via training, supplements, nutrition, education, content, motivation, toughness; real toughness = pursue greatness without sacrificing integrity; hard right over easy wrong; Go One More has pulled people from rock bottom (responsibility not light); pioneers/trailblazers; learn all of 2023's wins and losses; if on the team, be here to win; raise your hand when lost; no independent silos; row the same direction; be tough; Go One More.
He did not anticipate what 2024 would hold after publishing it.
Start of 2023 intent: sell minority share to PE to "de-risk," take chips off the table, add scaling partner. Yearlong process; deal collapsed just before close. Leadership question: what's next? Answer: we're back to building. No investors: clear vision, clarify values, rebuild team. Diligence and metric pressure had stressed the org top to bottom.
Learning density of 2023-2024 exceeded prior ten years of BPN; disappointing and frustrating without lasting anger; felt like deep end with cinder blocks. Early 2024: passion and energy last felt in 2019 (year of ~400 percent growth); creative energy plus confidence. Realization: you need not outsource everything; more experience ≠ better person; he had stepped down partly from lacking confidence he could scale and father/husband well; now believed he could do both exceptionally.
PE path threatened his highest value: freedom (time, energy, where to live/work, what and whom to work with). No check was worth that. Hole after CEO exit and Nashville move traced to what fulfilled him most: leading people. Infantry platoon leader of ~forty soldiers/NCOs; early BPN team fighting for a cause. Leading selfless teams for mission was the love; without it, a part of him died.
Conversation with wife, then team: move back to Texas; be close to the business; lead again. Entrepreneurship = constant problem-solving; decide, learn from consequence, pivot, adapt, try again. Own 2023 choices (right or wrong in hindsight unknown); respond and overcome. Lost/confused people usually signal a leadership problem; one lost person often has followers; that is not rowing together.
- 2016: Preston moves to Texas; first true co-builder
- 2019: "Go One More" tattoo; ~400% growth year
- 2021: Leadville 100 + More Than the Miles
- 2023: PE process collapses pre-close; Nashville season; leadership gap
- Dec 2023: manifesto; decide return to Texas / CEO
- 2024: rebuild energy; reclaim leadership boat
Solo for speed and values; right crew for distance; poison crew for stall.
- Leadville: 100 miles; 15,600 ft gain/loss; lottery 2021
- Marathon coaching arc: 3:24 → 2:39 in 3 years (Cunningham)
- Go One More tattoo: 2019; ~400% growth year
- PE process: ~1 year; collapses pre-close 2023
- Manifesto / CEO return decision: December 2023
- Francis triad: people, brand, product
CHAPTER TEN · Get to the Finish Line Any Way You Can
Finish well (even if you crawl)
Late 2023 podcast with Lyle Phillips (pastor, Legacy Church, Nashville; church Stef and Nick attended there). Phillips on finishing: encourage finish; you may not finish strong; you can finish well through character, integrity, consistency, faithfulness to God, family, church. If you must crawl over the line, crawl; do not quit.
Bare wants deathbed rest that he finished well: character and integrity held. Desperation for the tape often dumps values. Inspirations are people who endure struggle and still finish well. Phillips: no fruit on the mountaintop; fruit grows in the valley; valleys stock, feed, transform; "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…"; valleys build character.
Pushback he respects: "I'll finish strong regardless." Sometimes strong is unavailable; plan flips; world inverts. Quitting is easier than finishing; those moments define character. He has watched marathoners DNF when off goal pace; entrepreneurs mentally quit when revenue dips and cash tightens; marriages end when fights spike; people exit the fight because it got hard. Finish well = finish what you start regardless of mid-process chaos, because how you do one thing is how you do everything.
Carve out the pain cave
We start aiming at an ending; often the first finish is only a chapter. Endurance is for the whole story. Each step is incremental toward greater potential; finish one thing to open larger opportunities.
Courtney Dauwalter (ultrarunner) to Bare: every race she chisels the pain cave larger; capacity for suffering and push grows by expanding that mental room.
Courage to begin starts ability; harder challenges with larger stakes grow you; process and momentum reveal clarity. Go One More is action; power compounds when action meets clear intentional choices.
He started running to cross a line; as distance grew the line faded; driver became momentum to improve, learn, adapt, grow. Left military 2017 swearing never to run again; lasted ~one year. Training hard and often (sometimes multiple sessions/day) still left a hole; volume was not the fix; he needed to "do" differently. Contemplated returning to service; mission felt weaker than Army years. Running returned without a grand theory; it changed his life.
Runs gave silence, solitude, phone/email/meeting exile, and problem-solving clarity: slow down, think, plan, attack; if attack fails, rethink on the next run, replan, reattack.
First marathon: Austin Marathon 2018. Self-described mess; willpower over plan; believed mental > physical until better volume and structure would have made both easier. Mile sixteen wall; walk/jog; cramps; finish 3:57. Not catastrophic; knew prep was insufficient; energy and humility stuck. Then business and strength focus; running sidelined to a few easy miles.
2019 Austin: wanted the humbling hard again; expected a better time; changed almost nothing (training, mindset, process). Result: 4:15 (eighteen minutes slower); felt harder. Wish without aligned action earns the deserved result. Cycle break: bigger challenge. He wanted to hear: "Nick Bare, you are an Ironman."
- Post-Army "never run" vow lasted ~1 year (exit 2017)
- Austin Marathon 2018: 3:57 (undertrained)
- Austin Marathon 2019: 4:15 (same habits, worse time)
- First Ironman: Panama City / Ironman Florida, November 2019
Get to the finish line any way you can
Spark: early-1980s viral video of Julie Moss at the 1982 Ironman World Championship (Kona). Undertrained relative to the event; led after 2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike, into 26.2-mile run. Inside the final mile her body failed; collapse, stand, wilt; crowd pull; looking for the chaser. Ten yards from the tape she fell again; Kathleen McCartney passed for the win; Moss crawled to finish. Grit to complete what was started sold Bare on Ironman.
Signed Ironman Florida; hired a coach; became a student of endurance; shared experiments in content; finished Panama City November 2019. Hooked: work → results; mental clarity bled into personal, professional, business, relationships. Kept choosing hard: triathlon, marathon, ultra-trail; each year a physical unlock for mental capacity.
Spring 2024: BPN team + Bare + five other runners, The Speed Project: unsanctioned, unsupported relay. Roster rule: four men, two women; "rules" ≈ none. Start: Santa Monica Pier, Los Angeles, 4 am Friday; goal: Las Vegas as fast as possible. No route mandate, spectators, checkpoints, aid, medical. Team RV over ~300 miles; one runner at a time; 2-3 mile tags. Finish time: 35 hours 35 minutes.
Physical hard was real; logistics harder: routes, contingencies, vehicles, food/water, comms, rest, safety. No freeway running; mapped trusted fast access roads. First ~100 miles clean at ~6:30/mile. Night second leg: plan expected to break; adaptability required.
Downhill rocky gamble: cross or stick the vehicles nowhere. 4x4s made it. Off-road planned ~7 hours; actual ~14. Exhausted. Relinked RVs; access roads again; final 38 miles with every-mile swaps at ~6:00/mile into Vegas ("marathon workout at the end of an ultra"). Result: fourth among six-person teams. Message: finish well.
What: The Speed Project, LA → Las Vegas unsupported relay.
When: Spring 2024; 35:35 elapsed.
Outcome: Dropped 4th→28th on detour; finished 4th; lived "finish well."
Vision + action = momentum
Donald Miller (author/storyteller) spoke to BPN on brand, message, story. Three relationship/marketing stages Bare maps onto life:
- Curiosity: interest sparks.
- Enlightenment: learn, study, educate.
- Commitment: act on the curiosity.
All three required for finishes and businesses. Readers of this book are often in enlightenment on a new season; each stage still needs intention, time, patience, clarity.
Favorite race remains Austin Marathon: where he fell in love with running as lifestyle, not only racing. 2018 first marathon; 2024 delivered the pre-race speech to 19,000 runners: full-circle for him and for BPN. Marathon lessons = life lessons: hard regardless of fitness; patience, consistency, endurance; good and bad training days; go out too hot and you break before the tape; pacing, strategy, intention, forward thinking; keep working and progress continues; nothing is unbelievable; doubt is dangerous only when self-directed; curiosity before commitment (Miller).
2018 Bare would have laughed at a future speech to 19k. Vision, consistently amplified by action, produced momentum; not an ending, possibly a beginning. Between first marathon and speech: business growth, marriage, daughter, CEO step-down, Nashville, then weeks before speech CEO return, Texas prep, Stef pregnant with son Niko. Vision blurs sometimes and actions follow; self-awareness and discipline to learn from mistakes and wins still steer a better self.
He long framed CEO exit and out-of-state move as mistake; long run they created momentum. End of 2023: beat up; PE dead; lost in the business; ashamed of some calls; hard talk with three-months-pregnant Stef about leaving a just-settled Nashville. Outside view might say he finished 2023 strong; he says he finished it well.
Speech day energy inside BPN unmatched in years; vision clear; actions generating momentum. Phillips anecdote: runner's husband beside her on a painful training run: "Your job is to hurt right now. Can you do your job?" Bare asked Austin 2024 the same; now asks the reader: endure necessary pain for the marathon and for life (leader, parent, spouse, better self). Surrender to pain that grows you. Keep people who will say suffer well.
Phillips: someone should look you in the eye: suffer well, with dignity; it will suck; do it with dignity because that is who you are; accountability to the greatness you are called to. Suffer well. Finish well. Do your job.
- Curiosity → Is this possible for me?
- Enlightenment → Study the race / craft / season.
- Commitment → Sign up; train; act.
- Momentum loop: Vision → intentional action → momentum → clearer vision.
- Valley rule: Prefer finish well over quit-when-not-strong.
Go One More is an outcome
Meaningful mission includes sharing lessons from business, team, family: imperfect, many wrong calls, improve every round. Experiences arrive because he embraces growth and process with intentional decisions. "Go One More" arrived on a marathon training run; three words changed his life and many others'. More than one extra rep, hour, or mile: compounded intentional effort over time. Without clarity you cannot be intentional. Go One More is an outcome of highly intentional choices made consistently.
Choose to finish well. Work and courage required. Marathon, not sprint. Closing gift: the 2024 Austin Marathon pre-race speech that returned him to where this season began:
Valley fruit, pain-cave expansion, and intentional reps turn the slogan into a life result.
Finish well (always available): character, integrity, crawl if needed, no quit.
Main Points
Main Points
- Change is constant. Prepared adaptation and intentional choice decide whether change yields success and fulfillment.
- Mantra revised. Go One More is not "do more of anything"; it is more of the right things, at the right time, for the right reasons.
- Clarity triad. Name what you are working on, why, and how; without all three, effort is hope dressed as work.
- Mission of the book. Spark clarity so readers (and Bare's children) steer daily choices toward an aimed outcome, not busywork.
- Prove yourself right. Stop proving others wrong; commit, endure the process, execute; become self-powered.
- Father-approval fuel expires. Dad's "$1M is hard" line drove early BPN; lasting drive must be internal.
- Hard things as clarity labs. Ultras and hard arenas mirror strengths and weaknesses; Magness: discomfort leaves you alone with your head.
- Wife unlock. Stef names family neglect under hollow "more"; intentionality is the foundation, not volume.
- Key collector. Collect skills, reps, and proof under intentional aim; more without aim is neglect as hustle.
- Burn the boats. Delete half-measures (failed YouTube cycles); commit resources so retreat is not the default.
- Consistency beats talent. Decade-scale showing up compounds; BPN and the body were built that way.
- Progressive overload. Add controlled stress over time; recover enough to repeat; avoid comfort plateaus and reckless spikes.
- Controlled discomfort (Jeff). Great workouts need not leave you wrecked; empty the tank rarely, not daily.
- Simple ≠ easy. Eating-disorder years taught that simple rules can be brutally hard; simplify messages and life.
- Hard right over easy wrong. Clean the restaurant floor; way you do one thing is the way you do everything.
- Slow is smooth. Prefer military pace over "move fast and break things" sloppiness.
- Endure the process. Chadd / Cocodona: growth requires long tension; last mile is where settle or achieve.
- Endurance is built. Leadville 27:53; patience in weakness; hay is in the barn before race day.
- Forward thinking, backward planning. Define end state; diagnose blockers; timeline from end to now; run today's mile.
- Hold or fold. Passion and mission decide; sunk cost does not; Lost Supply folded so BPN could win.
- Change as invitation. Charli birth and CEO step-down felt like crisis; they were a new season.
- Disrupt on purpose. Nashville move: expect inconvenience; spiritual whisper matched the cost.
- Course-correct fast. Wrong bet: leave Nashville, return to Texas; prune necessary endings.
- CIM 2:39. Race under PE and move stress proved discipline travels when excuses are available.
- If it matters, schedule it. Leftover-time priorities are wishes; close the Value-Action Gap.
- Make time; do not find it. Korea side-hustle: $2k→$10k/month in 90 days; Preston quits and moves.
- Responsibilities > routines. Protect boundaries; ride the red line of performance, not burnout speed.
- Unequal hours caveat. "Same 24 hours" is not lived equality; still prune toward what matters.
- All in, not all consumed. Hyper-focus with fence; identity must survive without the goal.
- Meaningful Mission. Honesty, defined greatness, yes/no filter, evolving mission under deeper purpose, why under each goal.
- Timed sprints and flip switch. Obsession has seasons; match calendar to what matters when the season ends.
- Clarity runs. Jeff: run to organize thoughts, not to empty the head.
- Doubt rule. Outside doubt is noise; self-doubt is a steering change; only you must believe.
- Gut calibrated. Prefer healthy inspiration over toxic comparison; fail forward; they will call you crazy.
- Legacy is influence. Lasting shift in how people think and act because of your story; not purchased status.
- Drops vs buckets (Plank). Trust and legacy fill slowly; can empty fast; own every season's sum.
- Lighthouse. Linda Bare and purpose (Cookie / Bedros); aim legacy at light others can steer by.
- Fast alone, further together. Solo seasons build base; distance needs the right crew.
- Allies and coaches. Choose allies over enemies; remarkable-coach checklist; Francis product/brand/people caveat.
- Finish well. Strong finishes are nice; character finishes are required; enlarge the pain cave.
- Vision + action = momentum. Miller stages (curiosity → enlightenment → commitment); Go One More is an outcome, not a slogan.
Frameworks and mental models
| Name | What it says | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Clarity triad | What / why / how before more volume | Aimless hustle |
| Prove-yourself-right loop | Commit → endure process → execute | New hard goal |
| Self-powered | Internal fuel over proving others wrong | Approval treadmill |
| Key collector | Intentional skills and proof under aim | Scattershot growth |
| Consistency + progressive overload | Repeatable base + controlled added stress | Talent envy / plateau |
| Controlled discomfort | Hard enough to grow; not daily wreckage | Overtraining urge |
| Simple ≠ easy | Simplify systems; expect hard adherence | Complication addiction |
| Hard right / slow-smooth | Ethics and pace over casual speed | Sloppy "move fast" |
| Endure the process | Long tension; last-mile vigilance | Mid-project quit |
| Forward → backward plan | End state → blockers → milestones → today's mile | Plan fog |
| Hold or fold | Passion/mission vs sunk cost | Wrong side bet |
| Change as invitation | Disrupt on purpose; prune endings | Transition panic |
| Value-Action Gap | Calendar reveals real values | Stated vs lived priorities |
| Make-time loop | Name → audit → prune → plan → prep night before | "No time" story |
| Red line | High performance without burnout speed | Always-on grind |
| All in / not consumed | Obsession with off-ramp and North Star | Identity fuse to goal |
| Meaningful Mission checks | Honesty, filter, purpose under mission, why | Scattered energy |
| Flip the switch | End a sprint; re-match calendar | Post-obsession drift |
| Doubt split | Outside noise vs self-doubt steering | Criticism spiral |
| Legacy bucket | Drops in; monitor cracks; Plank's law | Status "legacy" |
| Francis triad + caveat | Product, brand, people; right crew only | Hiring / partners |
| Remarkable coach checklist | Trust, time, values, push, gut still yours | Mentor shopping |
| Finish-well / pain cave | Character under valley; enlarge capacity | Urge to DNF identity |
| Vision + action = momentum | Curiosity → study → commit → loop | Slogan without motion |
Who's who
| Person / figure | Role in the book |
|---|---|
| Nick Bare | Author; Army officer; founder of Bare Performance Nutrition; ultra runner; voice of Go One More |
| Stef | Wife; names family neglect unlock; Leadville "crazy dream"; Nashville/Texas partner |
| Charli Grace / Niko | Children; mission audience and life-transition markers |
| Preston Bare | Brother; Korea-era ops; quits job and moves to Texas for BPN |
| Linda Bare | Mother; lighthouse legacy figure; died June 2019 |
| Jeff Cunningham | Coach; controlled discomfort; clarity runs; ~96 min off marathon |
| Chadd Wright | SEAL → ultra mentor; Cocodona / endure the process; 3 of 7 Project |
| Blake Wright | Chadd's brother; 3 of 7 co-founder |
| Dad (Bare) | Early "$1M is hard" fuel; later foil for self-powered shift |
| Matt Vincent | Morning-routine comic foil |
| Casey Neistat | Storytelling study during Korea build |
| Jesse Itzler | Cumulative time / saying no |
| Lewis Howes | Meaningful Mission prompts |
| Bedros Keuilian | Cookie the dog / purpose story |
| Kevin Plank | Trust and legacy fill in drops, empty in buckets |
| Ben Francis | Product / brand / people triad |
| Courtney Dauwalter | Pain-cave image |
| Lyle Phillips | Finish well / suffer well |
| Julie Moss / Kathleen McCartney | 1982 Kona crawl finish case |
| Donald Miller | Curiosity → enlightenment → commitment stages |
| Sally McRae / Gino Wickman / Ryan Holiday / Mark Manson / others | Supporting mirrors across process, ego, culture |
About this book
Go One More: The Art of Living Your Best Life by Nick Bare, 2022. This is a chapter-by-chapter study of the book, with summaries, maps, tables and diagrams; short quotations keep their page references. It is shared free for personal study, is not for sale, and is not endorsed by the author or publisher. Please read and buy the original.
Insight Editions · rajeshrmahapatra.com/insight-editions